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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
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Pre-saccadic attention relies more on suppression than does covert attention
Julie Ouerfelli-Ethier1,2,3, Isabella Comtois Bona1,4, Romain Fournet1,5
1School of Optometry, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
Journal of Vision
|January 3, 2023
Summary
Pre-saccadic attention enhances target selection by increasing suppression at unattended locations, especially when targets are in the same visual hemifield. This differs from covert attention effects.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Attention
- Oculomotor Control
Background:
- Understanding attentional shifts, particularly covert versus pre-saccadic attention, is crucial for explaining target selection.
- Previous research suggests saccades amplify suppression at unattended locations, but facilitation remains consistent.
- It's unclear if this suppression effect is specific to tasks involving inhibition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether pre-saccadic attention amplifies suppression at unattended locations more than covert attention.
- To determine if spatial relationships between attended and unattended locations influence attentional suppression.
- To differentiate the timing of pre-saccadic suppression from general saccadic suppression.
Main Methods:
- Adapted an attention capture task with primed and probed locations, incorporating covert attention and pre-saccadic attention conditions.
- Participants performed letter report trials at non-primed locations and baseline conditions without priming.
- Data analyzed based on item set size, spatial proximity to the primed location, and timing relative to saccade onset.
Main Results:
- Both covert and pre-saccadic attention induced suppression at non-primed locations and facilitation at primed locations compared to baseline.
- Pre-saccadic attention trials showed enhanced facilitation at primed locations and greater suppression at non-primed locations than fixation trials.
- Suppression effects were stronger when primed and non-primed locations were in the same hemifield or diagonal quadrants, with distinct timing from saccadic suppression.
Conclusions:
- Pre-saccadic attention exerts a stronger suppressive influence on unattended locations compared to covert attention.
- Spatial congruence (same hemifield or diagonal quadrants) significantly modulates attentional suppression.
- The findings highlight distinct mechanisms underlying covert attention, pre-saccadic attention, and saccadic suppression.
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