Oculomotor inhibition precedes temporally expected auditory targets

Abstract

Eye movements are inhibited prior to the onset of temporally-predictable visual targets. This oculomotor inhibition effect could be considered a marker for the formation of temporal expectations and the allocation of temporal attention in the visual domain. Here we show that eye movements are also inhibited before predictable auditory targets. In two experiments, we manipulate the period between a cue and an auditory target to be either predictable or unpredictable. The findings show that although there is no perceptual gain from avoiding gaze-shifts in this procedure, saccades and blinks are inhibited prior to predictable relative to unpredictable auditory targets. These findings show that oculomotor inhibition occurs prior to auditory targets. This link between auditory expectation and oculomotor behavior reveals a multimodal perception action coupling, which has a central role in temporal expectations.

Oculomotor freezing reflects tactile temporal expectation and aids tactile perception

“…The presence of a relation between temporal predictability and oculomotor freezing in touch provides compelling evidence that microsaccadic inhibition reflects temporal expectation independent of modality, as tactile events are unlikely to trigger visual expectations. These findings, in combination with identical and similar effects in audition 10 and vision 8,9,27 , suggest that microsaccadic inhibition can be a marker of a supramodal mechanism of temporal expectation. Consistently, oscillations reflecting visual-tactile temporal expectation have sources over motor rather than sensory cortices 28 .…”

“…Such a crossmodal link opens the possibility that microsaccadic inhibition is a marker of a supramodal mechanism of temporal expectation. Consistently, research in the auditory domain 10 has indicated the presence of coupling between temporal expectation and oculomotor freezing. Yet, sensory information is likely to share a common source across vision and audition; the sound of a colleague's steps in the hallway might reliably predict her visual presence in your office.…”

“…Thirty persons recruited at New York University (26 right-handed, 10 male, 19-37 years old, mean 27 years) participated in the experiment. Sample sizes were increased by 50% compared with other studies using the same experimental protocol 9,10 , as our analyses related single-trial response times and accuracy to microsaccade occurrences. No participant was excluded.…”

Pre-target oculomotor inhibition reflects temporal orienting rather than certainty

“…Results from the current study consistently support the predictions made by the temporal orienting hypothesis, and not those made by the certainty hypothesis. In a series of previous studies it has been suggested that pre-target oculomotor inhibition could be an informative measurement for assessing target predictability [2][3][4][5][6] . These findings were interpreted as reflecting a link between pre-target oculomotor inhibition and three different types of temporal structures 1 : those due to the association between cue and target (associative regularity); those due to rhythmic stimulation (rhythmic regularity); and those due to conditional probabilities (hazard rate).…”

“…Temporal expectation is a prediction regarding the timing of events based on previously-experienced temporal regularities 1 . Recent studies showed that the oculomotor system is tightly linked to temporal attention and expectation: oculomotor activity (saccades, ocular drift, and blinks) is inhibited for a few hundred of milliseconds prior to the appearance of a predictable, relative to an unpredictable, stimulus [2][3][4][5][6] . This oculomotor inhibition phenomenon can be used as a sensitive marker for temporal expectation and, as such, has several advantages over traditional behavioral and electrophysiological markers 2 .…”