Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades.
The premotor theory of attention postulates that spatial attention arises from the activation of saccade areas and that the deployment of attention is the consequence of motor programming. Yet attentional and oculomotor processes have been shown to be dissociable at the neuronal level in covert atte...
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| Format: | Article |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2018-06-01
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| Series: | PLoS Biology |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2006548&type=printable |
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| author | Luca Wollenberg Heiner Deubel Martin Szinte |
| author_facet | Luca Wollenberg Heiner Deubel Martin Szinte |
| author_sort | Luca Wollenberg |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The premotor theory of attention postulates that spatial attention arises from the activation of saccade areas and that the deployment of attention is the consequence of motor programming. Yet attentional and oculomotor processes have been shown to be dissociable at the neuronal level in covert attention tasks. To investigate a potential dissociation at the behavioral level, we instructed human participants to move their eyes (saccade) towards 1 of 2 nearby, competing saccade targets. The spatial distribution of visual attention was determined using oriented visual stimuli presented either at the target locations, between them, or at several other equidistant locations. Results demonstrate that accurate saccades towards one of the targets were associated with presaccadic enhancement of visual sensitivity at the respective saccade endpoint compared to the nonsaccaded target location. In contrast, averaging saccades, landing between the 2 targets, were not associated with attentional facilitation at the saccade endpoint. Rather, attention before averaging saccades was equally deployed at the 2 target locations. Taken together, our results reveal that visual attention is not obligatorily coupled to the endpoint of a subsequent saccade. Rather, our results suggest that the oculomotor program depends on the state of attentional selection before saccade onset and that saccade averaging arises from unresolved attentional selection. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-633e0ebadcb3460b8577ea3472e272e3 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1544-9173 1545-7885 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2018-06-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Biology |
| spelling | doaj-art-633e0ebadcb3460b8577ea3472e272e32025-08-20T02:03:47ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Biology1544-91731545-78852018-06-01166e200654810.1371/journal.pbio.2006548Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades.Luca WollenbergHeiner DeubelMartin SzinteThe premotor theory of attention postulates that spatial attention arises from the activation of saccade areas and that the deployment of attention is the consequence of motor programming. Yet attentional and oculomotor processes have been shown to be dissociable at the neuronal level in covert attention tasks. To investigate a potential dissociation at the behavioral level, we instructed human participants to move their eyes (saccade) towards 1 of 2 nearby, competing saccade targets. The spatial distribution of visual attention was determined using oriented visual stimuli presented either at the target locations, between them, or at several other equidistant locations. Results demonstrate that accurate saccades towards one of the targets were associated with presaccadic enhancement of visual sensitivity at the respective saccade endpoint compared to the nonsaccaded target location. In contrast, averaging saccades, landing between the 2 targets, were not associated with attentional facilitation at the saccade endpoint. Rather, attention before averaging saccades was equally deployed at the 2 target locations. Taken together, our results reveal that visual attention is not obligatorily coupled to the endpoint of a subsequent saccade. Rather, our results suggest that the oculomotor program depends on the state of attentional selection before saccade onset and that saccade averaging arises from unresolved attentional selection.https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2006548&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Luca Wollenberg Heiner Deubel Martin Szinte Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades. PLoS Biology |
| title | Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades. |
| title_full | Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades. |
| title_fullStr | Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades. |
| title_short | Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades. |
| title_sort | visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2006548&type=printable |
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