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Updated: Jun 15, 2026
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Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
Visual target selection and motor planning define attentional enhancement at perceptual processing stages
Thérèse Collins1, Tobias Heed, Brigitte Röder
1Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS, Université Paris Descartes Paris, France.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|March 13, 2010
Summary
Spatial attention is guided by both visual target selection and motor preparation. This study used saccadic adaptation to show that attention focuses on both the visual target and the planned eye movement endpoint.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
- Oculomotor Control
Background:
- Covert attention and saccade preparation are linked, but the exact relationship is debated.
- Presaccadic attention may stem from selecting a visual target or planning a motor action.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether visual target selection or motor preparation drives attentional orienting.
- To dissociate these two processes using saccadic adaptation.
Main Methods:
- Saccadic adaptation was employed to create a mismatch between visual targets and saccade endpoints.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to visual probes during saccade preparation.
- Probes were presented at the visual target and motor endpoint locations.
Main Results:
- Attention modulated ERPs at both the visual target and motor endpoint locations.
- This modulation occurred early in visual-perceptual processing (130-170 ms post-probe).
Conclusions:
- Both visual target selection and motor preparation contribute to spatial attention.
- Enhanced stimulus processing occurs at both locations during early visual-perceptual stages.
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