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Experimental Psychology (Russia)
2025. Vol. 18, no. 4, 7–29
doi:10.17759/exppsy.2025180401
ISSN: 2072-7593 / 2311-7036 (online)

Specificity of intrasaccadic perception: Facial expressions require time

 
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Abstract

Context and relevance. Notion of functional blindness during saccadic eye movements makes heavy influence upon theory of visual perception. Lack of systemic and comparative studies of the subject played an important role for the problem. Many authors build theories based on assumptions that effects of saccadic suppression cover stimuli of any possible category and with no relation to multiple psychophysical factors. We deepen knowledge inside this discipline through wide selection of quasi-experiments involving identification levels of objects of various content strictly during saccades. Objective: to prove that visual perception retains efficiency during saccades. Hypothesis. Stimulus duration inside saccadic interval is a crucial determinant of successful identification. Methods and materials. 96 subjects took participation in this experiment (91% female), of age 18—55 years (median 21). An eyetracking study measuring identification levels in a 2-alternative forced-choice task was held. Eyetracker was providing eye movement data, but also used as reliable trigger of an ongoing saccade. Results. We report effect of stimulus duration versus identification levels during saccades, while comparing results between three different categories of stimuli. Conclusions. Saccadic suppression cannot be caused by dichotomic fade out of visual ability, instead, it is a byproduct of perception during eye movement as such, which heavily depends on stimulus type, its characteristics and duration of exposition.

General Information

Keywords: visual continuity, intrasaccadic period, fragile saccadic suppression, facial expression, Voronoi diagrams, facealike similarity factor, temporal resolution

Journal rubric: Face Science

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/exppsy.2025180401

Funding. This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project number 24-18-00904, https://rscf.ru/en/project/24-18-00904/.

Acknowledgements. Authors are grateful to university colleagues for motivating subjects for participation.

Supplemental data. The dataset is currently not publicly available.

Received 10.11.2025

Revised 26.11.2025

Accepted

Published

For citation: Barabanschikov, V.A., Zherdev, I.Y. (2025). Specificity of intrasaccadic perception: Facial expressions require time. Experimental Psychology (Russia), 18(4), 7–29. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/exppsy.2025180401

© Barabanschikov V.A., Zherdev I.Y., 2025

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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Information About the Authors

Vladimir A. Barabanschikov, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Director, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Professor, Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis, Moscow, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5084-0513, e-mail: vladimir.barabanschikov@gmail.com

Ivan Y. Zherdev, associated researcher, software developer, Moscow State University of psychology and education, Moscow, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6810-9297, e-mail: ivan866@mail.ru

Contribution of the authors

Vladimir A. Barabanschikov — comprehensive analysis and theoretical grounds of the results.

Ivan Y. Zherdev — conducting experimental runs, software engineering, data analysis and statistics.

Both authors participated in the discussion of the results and approved the final text of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. All participants were informed about the estimate duration of the experiment run, and that it may be interrupted or cancelled at any moment they require, and it will not cause any substantial data loss and will not affect its validity, quality, or value. They were also informed they can demand deletion of their data, but not after the analysis has been done and published. No personal or confidential data was stored at any given moment in time, excluding the sociometric form, which, nevertheless, we have not verified for trustworthiness. We have also stated there was no harm for participants' health involved while working with the equipment we were providing.

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