Eye and hand movements disrupt attentional control

Abstract

Voluntary attentional control is the ability to selectively focus on a subset of visual information in the presence of other competing stimuli. While it is well established that this capability is a marker of cognitive control that allows for flexible, goal-driven behavior, it is still an open question how robust it is. In this study we contrasted voluntary attentional control with the most frequent source of automatic, involuntary attentional orienting in daily life: shifts of attention prior to goal-directed eye and hand movements. In a multi-tasking paradigm, we asked participants to attend at a location while planning eye or hand movements elsewhere. We observed that voluntary attentional control suffered with every simultaneous action plan. Crucially, this impairment occurred even when we reduced task difficulty and memory load, factors known to interfere with attentional control. Furthermore, the performance cost was limited to voluntary attention. We observed simultaneous attention benefits at two movement targets without attentional competition between them. This demonstrates that the visual system allows for the concurrent representation of multiple attentional foci. It further reveals that voluntary attentional control is extremely fragile and dominated by automatic, premotor shifts of attention. We propose that action-driven selection disrupts voluntary attention and plays a superordinate role for visual selection.

Presaccadic attention depends on eye movement direction and is related to V1 cortical magnification

“…This finding is surprising for several reasons: (I) presaccadic attention is assumed to be mandatory: it automatically shifts before any saccade being made 1,17,32 , via oculomotor feedback projections 11,12,[18][19][20] ; (II) presaccadic attention facilitates the integration of pre-and post-saccadic information 33 and thus has an important functional role, indispensable also for upward saccades: By rendering peripheral representations more fovea-like (e.g., via predictively enhancing contrast sensitivity 4,6 and spatial resolution at the saccade target 26 , or shifting sensitivity at the saccade target to higher spatial frequencies 7,9 ), presaccadic attention enables a smooth transition from presaccadic (peripheral) to post-saccadic (foveal) information -and thus perceptual continuity across saccades [6][7][8][9][34][35][36] ; (III) visual sensitivity at the upper vertical meridian (during fixation) is generally lowest, thus could improve the most 22,[27][28][29][30]37 . Our former study measured presaccadic attention at perceptual threshold 21 , but recent findings show that presaccadic attention modulates performance via response gain 6 , i.e., at higher stimulus contrasts where performance asymptotes.…”

“…Sensitivity at locations other than the target -including the currently still foveated location 13 -inevitably decreases just before saccade onset 3,14,15 . Presaccadic attention even shifts to the saccade target when detrimental for the task at hand 1,9,16,17 , demonstrating a strong functional coupling.…”

Dissociable roles of human frontal eye fields and early visual cortex in presaccadic attention – evidence from TMS

“…Interestingly, attention reaches the next location of interest already before the eyes start to move. This presaccadic shift of attention is indicated by perceptual benefits at the saccade target [1][2][3][4][5] , at the expense of costs elsewhere [6][7][8][9][10][11] .…”

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Shortly before each saccadic eye movement, presaccadic attention improves visual sensitivity at the saccade target [1][2][3][4][5] at the expense of lowered sensitivity at non-target locations [6][7][8][9][10][11] . Some behavioral and neural correlates of presaccadic attention and covert attention are similar 12 , which likewise enhances sensitivity but during fixation 13 .

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