Attentional shifts bias microsaccade direction but do not cause new microsaccades.

ABSTRACT: Brain circuitry that controls where we look also contributes to attentional selection of visual contents outside current fixation, or content within the spatial layout of working memory. A behavioural manifestation of this contribution comes from modulations in microsaccade direction that accompany spatial attention shifts. Here, we address whether such modulations come about because attention shifts trigger new microsaccades or whether, instead, spatial attention only biases the direction of ongoing microsaccades that would have been made whether or not attention was also shifted. We utilised an internal-selective-attention task that has recently been shown to yield robust spatial microsaccade modulations and compared microsaccade rates following colour retrocues that were carefully match

SUBMITTER: Liu B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11496105 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature