  The concept of a cell$'$s receptive field is a bedrock in systems
neuroscience, and the classical static description of the receptive field has
had enormous success in explaining the fundamental mechanisms underlying visual
processing. Borne out by the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual sensitivity to
probe stimuli in primates, I build on top of this static account with the
introduction of a new computational field of research, retinotopic mechanics.
At its core, retinotopic mechanics assumes that during active sensing receptive
fields are not static but can shift beyond their classical extent.
Specifically, the canonical computations and the neural architecture that
supports these computations are inherently mediated by a neurobiologically
inspired force field (e.g.,$R_s\propto \sim 1 /\Delta M$). For example, when
the retina is displaced because of a saccadic eye movement from one point in
space to another, cells across retinotopic brain areas are tasked with
discounting the retinal disruptions such active surveillance inherently
introduces. This neural phenomenon is known as spatial constancy. Using
retinotopic mechanics, I propose that to achieve spatial constancy or any
active visually mediated task, retinotopic cells, namely their receptive
fields, are constrained by eccentricity dependent elastic fields. I propose
that elastic fields are self-generated by the visual system and allow receptive
fields the ability to predictively shift beyond their classical extent to
future post-saccadic location such that neural sensitivity which would
otherwise support intermediate eccentric locations likely to contain retinal
disruptions is transiently blunted.
