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Early top-down control over saccadic target selection: Evidence from a systematic salience difference manipulation.

Harriet Goschy1, A Isabel Koch, Hermann J Müller

  • 1Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802, Munich, Germany, harriet.goschy@psy.lmu.de.

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Top-down control significantly influences eye movements, even for rapid saccades. Our study shows that cognitive factors, not just visual salience, guide where we look, demonstrating strong volitional control in target selection.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Ophthalmology
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Saccadic target selection research suggests eye movements are primarily salience-driven.
  • The role of top-down control in early saccades remains incompletely understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To systematically investigate top-down influences on saccadic target selection.
  • To examine how time and relative salience differences affect target selection.
  • To quantify the contribution of top-down control in prioritizing targets over distractors.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed a saccadic selection task involving an orientation-defined target and a color-defined distractor.
  • Distractor salience was systematically varied across five levels.
  • Target and distractor fixation percentages were analyzed relative to salience differences.

Main Results:

  • Both overall and short-latency saccades showed a strong preference for the target, even when distractors were slightly more salient.
  • A distractor needed considerably higher bottom-up salience than the target to have an equal selection probability.
  • This indicates significant top-down control influencing even the earliest eye movements.

Conclusions:

  • Top-down control plays a crucial role in saccadic target selection, counteracting bottom-up salience.
  • Cognitive influences are evident even in short-latency saccades, challenging purely salience-driven models.
  • The findings highlight the brain's ability to prioritize relevant information during visual search.