The effect of attentional demands on the antisaccade cost

In the present study, we examined the effect of attentional demands on the antisaccade cost (the latency difference between antisaccades and prosaccades). Participants performed a visual search for a target digit and were required to execute a saccade toward (prosaccade) or away from (antisaccade) the target. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that the antisaccade cost was greater when the target was premasked (i.e., presented through the removal of line segments) than when it appeared as an onset. Furthermore, in premasked target conditions, the antisaccade cost was increased by the presentation of onset distractors. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that the antisaccade cost was greater in a difficult search task (a numeral 2 among 5s) than in an easy one (a 2 among 7s). The findings provide evidence that attentional demands increase the antisaccade cost. We propose that the attentional demands of the search task interfere with the attentional control required to select the antisaccade goal.