Enhanced vision with saccadic eye movements: an artefact due to phosphor persistence of display screens?

In format ion transfer across saccadic eye movements improving postsaccadic visual sensitivity was the topic o f a series of papers with partially contradicting conclusions. This issue experienced an increased interest in the early eighties, when Jonides et a l 11],12] recognized that experimental resulb could be biased b y phosphor persistence which i tself preserves information over the saccadic period and "enhances" postsaccadic vision. Technical specifications of phosphor persistence do not al low to predict ib behavior in operationial modes which differs f rom the test conditions. This paper presents physical measurements of P31 phosphor persistence showing that in certain conditions the residual luminance after pattern offset amounts less than 5% of its original value after IO msec, less than 2.5% after 30 mscc and less than 1.4% o f its or ig ina l value after SO msec. Such a small amount of P31 phosphor persistence should no t restrain the application of these display techniques in visual psychophysics, and it rules out a phosphor persistence component o f information transfer across saccades.