Perceptual enhancement prior to intended and involuntary saccades

Abstract

Prior to an eye movement, attention is gradually shifted toward the point where the saccade will land. Our goal was to better understand the allocation of attention in an oculomotor capture paradigm for saccades that go straight to the eye movement target and for saccades that go to a distractor and are followed by corrective saccades to the target (i.e., involuntary saccades). We also sought to test facilitation at the future retinotopic location of target and nontarget objects, with the principal aim of verifying whether the remapping process accounts for the retinal displacement caused by involuntary saccades. Two experiments were run employing a dual-task design, primarily requiring participants to perform saccades toward a target while discriminating an asymmetric cross presented briefly before saccade onset. The results clearly show perceptual facilitation at the target location for goal-directed saccades and at the distractor location when oculomotor capture occurred. Facilitation was observed at a location relating to the remapping of a future saccade landing point, in sequences of oculomotor capture. In contrast, performance remained unaffected at the remapped location of a salient distracting object, which was not looked at. The findings are taken as evidence that presaccadic enhancement occurs prior to involuntary and voluntary saccades alike and that the remapping process also indiscriminatingly accounts for the retinal displacement caused by either.

The Limits of Predictive Remapping of Attention Across Eye Movements

“…Our results relate to earlier findings by Puntiroli et al (2015), who tested the allocation of attention at targets and non-targets while making voluntary and involuntary saccades. In their experiment participants made either one or two saccades.…”

Predictive remapping of visual features beyond saccadic targets

“…Since the target was very difficult to detect and required a high degree of attention toward the particular location, the authors proposed that attention, rather than feature information, is predictively remapped prior to a saccade. This hypothesis was further supported by several subsequent studies (Harrison et al, 2013;Hunt & Cavanagh, 2011;Jonikaitis, Szinte, Rolfs, & Cavanagh, 2013;Puntiroli, Kerzel, & Born, 2015). However, in recent years a number of studies have provided evidence that feature information, in addition to attentional pointers, is also involved in transsaccadic remapping (Cha & Chong, 2013;Demeyer, De Graef, Wagemans, & Verfaillie, 2009, 2010Demeyer, Graef, Verfaillie, & Wagemans, 2011;Eccelpoel, Germeys, Graef, & Verfaillie, 2008;Edwards, VanRullen, & Cavanagh, 2017;Fracasso, Caramazza, & Melcher, 2010;Gordon, Vollmer, & Frankl, 2008;Habtegiorgis, Rifai, Lappe, & Wahl, 2018;Harrison & Bex, 2014;Hayhoe, Lachter, & Feldman, 1991;He et al, 2017;Herwig & Schneider, 2014;Koller & Rafal, 2018;Melcher, 2007;Nakashima & Sugita, 2017;Oostwoud Wijdenes, Marshall, & Bays, 2015;Paeye, Collins, & Cavanagh, 2017;Prime, Niemeier, & Crawford, 2006;Prime, Vesia, & Crawford, 2011;Sligte et al, 2017;Wittenberg, Bremmer, & Wachtler, 2008;Wolfe & Whitney, 2015;Zimmermann et al, 2013;Zimmermann et al, 2017;…”

Saccadic eye movements do not disrupt the deployment of feature-based attention

“…Previous studies have shown that spatial attention rapidly selects saccade targets before the onset of the movement (Castet et al, 2006;Deubel, 2008;Rolfs & Carrasco, 2012) and that feature information such as motion survives the saccade (Fallah & Reynolds, 2012). Due to the retinotopic organization of the visual-processing machinery, spatial attention requires an updating process that remaps the attentional landscape each time we execute a saccade (Cavanagh et al, 2010;, and this remapping of attention has received considerable empirical support Puntiroli et al, 2015;Rolfs et al, 2011;Szinte et al, 2015). In contrast to that, FBA is independent of space, and exerts its effects broadly across the visual field (White & Carrasco, 2011).…”

“…Evidence has accumulated that the allocation of spatial attention before saccades plays a key role in perceptual continuity across saccades-that is, the visual system's ability to deal with the massive displacement of objects on the retina that saccades unavoidably entail (Cavanagh, Hunt, Afraz, & Rolfs, 2010;Rolfs, 2015). An instant before the execution of a saccade, attention shifts towards the future retinal locations of currently attended objects (Jonikaitis, Szinte, Rolfs, & Cavanagh, 2013;Puntiroli, Kerzel, & Born, 2015;Rolfs et al, 2011;Szinte, Carrasco, Cavanagh, & Rolfs, 2015;Szinte, Jonikaitis, Rolfs, Cavanagh, & Deubel, 2016). This remapping of attention has been associated with benefits in visual processing at these locations after saccade landing and the facilitation of secondary saccades toward them (Puntiroli et al, 2015;Rolfs et al, 2011).…”

“…An instant before the execution of a saccade, attention shifts towards the future retinal locations of currently attended objects (Jonikaitis, Szinte, Rolfs, & Cavanagh, 2013;Puntiroli, Kerzel, & Born, 2015;Rolfs et al, 2011;Szinte, Carrasco, Cavanagh, & Rolfs, 2015;Szinte, Jonikaitis, Rolfs, Cavanagh, & Deubel, 2016). This remapping of attention has been associated with benefits in visual processing at these locations after saccade landing and the facilitation of secondary saccades toward them (Puntiroli et al, 2015;Rolfs et al, 2011). Indeed, recent evidence suggests that attention is available at relevant locations within no more than 30 ms after saccade landing (Yao, Ketkar, Treue, & Krishna, 2016), although a direct link to remapping of attention has yet to be established (visual sensitivity was not probed at the remapped location of the attended target).…”