Top-down control of the left visual field bias in cued visual spatial attention

A left visual field (LVF) bias in perceptual judgments, response speed, and discrimination accuracy has been reported in humans. Cognitive factors, such as visual spatial attention, are known to modulate or even eliminate this bias. We investigated this problem by recording pupillometry together with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a cued visual spatial attention task. We observed that (i) the pupil was significantly more dilated following attend-right than attend-left cues, (ii) the task performance (e.g. reaction time [RT]) did not differ between attend-left and attend-right trials, and (iii) the difference in cue-related pupil dilation between attend-left and attend-right trials was inversely related to the corresponding difference in RT. Neuroscientically, correlating the difference in cue-related pupil dilation with the corresponding cue-related fMRI difference yielded activations primarily in the right hemisphere, including the right intraparietal sulcus and the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that (i) there is an asymmetry in visual spatial attention control, with the rightward attention control being more effortful than the leftward attention control, (ii) this asymmetry underlies the reduction or the elimination of the LVF bias, and (iii) the components of the attentional control networks in the right hemisphere are likely part of the neural substrate of the observed asymmetry in attentional control.