The effects of training on fast saccades: the global effect can not be diminished by training
Summary
Saccades are fast eye movements which we make in order to check our surroundings. The global effect is the phenomenon that due to competition, a saccade lands between two stimuli, instead of on one of the stimuli. To research whether it is possible for participants to make fast saccades that are directed more at a target-stimulus, after training, an experiment was set up. In this experiment participants were trained at making fast and accurate saccades towards a target-stimulus, while there was also a distractor-stimulus present.
The differences in relative saccadic landing position and saccadic latency of the first half of the experiment and the second half of the experiment were compared. Also, the influence of saccadic latency on the saccadic endpoint and the absolute distance between saccadic endpoints and the target and distractor were examined.
All in all, the outcome of the experiment is that it is not possible to diminish the global effect by training for half an hour. Results showed that it is possible to initiate saccades faster after training for half an hour and because it is harder to influence the saccadic endpoint by top-down information for saccades with a shorter latency, the fact that participants initiated saccades faster after training might explain why it is not possible for participants to make more accurate saccades.