ABSTRACT
The phenomenon that caused me to consider perceptual learning by saccades was reported by Festinger, Burnham, Ono, and Bamber (1967), by Slotnick (1969), and by Taylor (1962/1975). It can be described as follows: If a prismatic contact lens, causing straight lines to appear curved, is attached to the eye, the subject initially perceives the environment or the display to be distorted. The perceived distortion is reduced, however, as the display is explored by saccadic eye movements with the head in a fixed position. Such visual adaptation remains even during fixation (Slotnick, 1969). Removing the prism lens produces an aftereffect: The environment is perceived to be distorted in the opposite direction to the prismatic deformation until, after a short period, the perceptual world corresponds again to the actual environment.
