Serial dependencies and overt attention shifts

When visual input is uncertain, visual perception is biased toward the stimulation from the recent past. We can attend to stimuli either endogenously based on an internal decision or exogenously, triggered by an external event. Here, we wondered whether serial dependencies are selective for the attentional mode which we draw to stimuli. We studied overt attention shifts: saccades and recorded either motor error correction or visual orientation judgments. In Experiment 1, we assessed sensorimotor serial dependencies, focusing on how the postsaccadic error influences subsequent saccade amplitudes. In Experiment 2, we evaluated visual serial dependencies by measuring orientation judgments, contingent on the type of saccade performed. In separate sessions, participants performed either only voluntary saccades or only delayed saccades, or both saccade types alternated within a session. Our results revealed that sensorimotor serial dependencies were selective for the saccade type performed. When voluntary saccades had been performed in the preceding trial, serial dependencies were much stronger in the current trial if voluntary instead of delayed saccades were executed. In contrast, visual serial dependencies were not influenced by the type of saccade performed. Our findings reveal that shifts in exogenous and endogenous attention differentially impact sensorimotor serial dependencies, but visual serial dependencies remain unaffected.