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Updated: Apr 26, 2026

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
Unconscious cues bias first saccades in a free-saccade task
Yu-Feng Huang1, Edlyn Gui Fang Tan2, Chun Siong Soon1
1Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore, Singapore.
Abstract:
Visual-spatial attention can be biased towards salient visual information without visual awareness. It is unclear, however, whether such bias can further influence free-choices such as saccades in a free viewing task. In our experiment, we presented visual cues below awareness threshold immediately before people made free saccades. Our results showed that masked cues could influence the direction and latency of the first free saccade, suggesting that salient visual information can unconsciously influence free actions.

