Smooth shifts of visual attention

To examine whether visual attention shifts continuously across the visual field, we measured sensitivity to a small flash presented at various locations while the observer was tracking a moving target in an ambiguous apparent motion display. The sensitivity peaked near the target and the peak shifted smoothly along the apparent motion path. Since the peak-shift speed varied with the speed of the tracked target, we conclude that the attention mechanism selects the location to facilitate processing by tracking the target disk continuously. Attention does not simply select a location for enhanced processing, but rather predicts the future location of the object of interest based on its velocity.