The antisaccade task in a sample of 2,006 young men

Abstract

A population of 2,075 young men aged 18-25 years selected from the conscripts of the Greek Air Force performed an antisaccade task as part of a prospective study for the identification of risk factors in the development of psychoses. The aim of this study, which is ongoing, is to follow this population and investigate the possible predictive value of oculomotor, cognitive, and psychometric factors for the development of psychosis and other psychiatric conditions. In this report we present data concerning the antisaccade task in this population. We measured performance indices, including the percentage of errors (PE), the latencies of different eye movement responses (latency for correct antisaccades, errors, corrections), and performance in perseveration-prone trials. These indices were also evaluated with respect to IQ (measured by the Raven progressive matrices test) and educational level. Mean PE was 23%, with 17% variance. This large variance is of particular importance whenever the detection of a putative deviant behavior is explored. As mean latency of the first eye movement decreased, the PE increased, as did the latency variance. While the negative correlation between percentage of error and mean latency is well established, the relationship of the latency variability of the first response to error production has not been studied before. Thus, optimal performance appears to require both an intermediate mean latency and a small variability. Furthermore, performance seems to be affected by IQ (the higher the IQ score, the lower the percentage of errors). This report offers an analysis of the interindividual variation in the performance of the antisaccade task and discusses some of the sources of this variation.

Performance Deficits in a Voluntary Saccade Task in Chinese “Express Saccade Makers”

“…A synchronous antisaccade task was used (the saccade target appeared when the fixation target was extinguished) as opposed to a gap antisaccade task which encourages both the production of lower latency responses and express saccade errors [29]. An error rate of 23±17% for a synchronous task (albeit with targets appearing at a range of eccentricities from 2° to 10°) for a large sample of over 2000 young men aged between 18 y and 24 y has been reported previously [30]. This compares reasonably well with the error rate in our normal participants (28±16%).…”

“…Evdokimidis et al [30] plotted pooled latency distributions for both correct antisaccades and error prosaccades for their large sample. For correct antisaccades they showed a broad unimodal distribution with a mean (±SD) of 270±39 ms, similar to what we observed in both ESM (290±37 ms ) and normal groups (290±61 ms; Figure 5A,C).…”

Flipping the stimulus: Effects on scanpath coherence?

“…Performance in an antisaccade task has shown that people are better prepared to make rightward saccades, which are performed faster and with fewer errors (Evdokimidis et al, 2002;Tatler & Hutton, 2007). This asymmetry may be a result of a learned behavior, since it is consistent with the findings of Abed (1991) comparing the directions of saccades when looking at simple dot patterns in Western, Middle Eastern, and East Asian participants.…”

Evidence from cluster analysis for differentiation of antisaccade performance groups based on speed/accuracy trade-offs

“…This coupling suggests that (1) participants tend to use one of two strategies for performing antisaccade tasks: to emphasize speed or to maximize accuracy; and/or (2) that error rate may be secondary to speed of saccade generation (Klein et al, 2000). This pattern in healthy (Ethridge et al, 2009; Ettinger et al, 2005, Evdokimidis et al, 2002) and in schizophrenia (Harris et al, 2006) participants suggests that heightened visual orienting to a salient peripheral stimulus, manifested in speeded saccade latencies, may predispose to greater risk of antisaccade error generation independent of psychiatric status.…”

“…Within antisaccade tasks, higher error rates are associated with decreased correct response latencies (Evdokimidis, et al, 2002), indicating a possible speed/accuracy trade-off. Between tasks, higher antisaccade errors are associated with decreased prosaccade latencies (Ethridge et al, 2009; Ettinger, et al, 2005), indicating a link between failed inhibition and speed of visual orienting (Reilly et al, 2008).…”