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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
Pre-saccadic shifts of visual attention
William J Harrison1, Jason B Mattingley, Roger W Remington
1The School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. willjharri@gmail.com
Plos One
|October 3, 2012
Summary
Visual attention is biased in the direction of eye movements (saccades). This study shows that attentional benefits extend beyond the cued location to intermediate and future locations, suggesting a systematic saccadic bias.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Attention
- Oculomotor Behavior
Background:
- Spatial attention is initially mapped retinotopically.
- Saccades shift retinal images, requiring updates to spatial attention mapping.
- Previous research identified a 'future-field' of attention in the saccade direction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if attentional benefits are confined to retinotopic and future-field locations.
- To determine if attention extends to intermediate locations between retinotopic and future-field sites.
- To clarify the nature of attentional shifts relative to saccades.
Main Methods:
- Participants responded to visual targets after a brief cue.
- Target locations varied: retinotopic cue location, future-field location, and intermediate points.
- Performance (reaction time) was measured for cued versus uncued targets.
Main Results:
- Attentional cues facilitated target detection at both retinotopic and future-field locations.
- Crucially, cueing benefits were also observed at intermediate locations between the retinotopic and future-field sites.
- These findings indicate attention is biased in the saccade direction.
Conclusions:
- Attentional benefits are not limited to specific retinotopic or future-field locations.
- Attention systematically shifts in the direction of saccades, independent of predictive remapping.
- This suggests a general bias of spatial attention accompanying eye movements.
