Antisaccade Cost Is Modulated by Contextual Experience of Location Probability

Abstract

Liu C-L, Chiau H-Y, Tseng P, Hung DL, Tzeng OJL, Muggleton NG, Juan C-H. Antisaccade cost is modulated by contextual experience of location probability. J Neurophysiol 103: 1438 -1447, 2010. First published December 23, 2009 doi:10.1152/jn.00815.2009. It is well known that pro-and antisaccades may deploy different cognitive processes. However, the specific reason why antisaccades have longer latencies than prosaccades is still under debate. In three experiments, we studied the factors contributing to the antisaccade cost by taking attentional orienting and target location probabilities into account. In experiment 1, using a new antisaccade paradigm, we directly tested Olk and Kingstone's hypothesis, which attributes longer antisaccade latency to the time it takes to reorient from the visual target to the opposite saccadic target. By eliminating the reorienting component in our paradigm, we found no significant difference between the latencies of the two saccade types. In experiment 2, we varied the proportion of prosaccades made to certain locations and found that latencies in the high location-probability (75%) condition were faster than those in the low location-probability condition. Moreover, antisaccade latencies were significantly longer when location probability was high. This pattern can be explained by the notion of competing pathways for pro-and antisaccades in findings of others. In experiment 3, we further explored the degrees of modulation of location probability by decreasing the magnitude of high probability from 75 to 65%. We again observed a pattern similar to that seen in experiment 2 but with smaller modulation effects. Together, these experiments indicate that the reorienting process is a critical factor in producing the antisaccade cost. Furthermore, the antisaccade cost can be modulated by probabilistic contextual information such as location probabilities. I N T R O D U C T I O NThe saccadic eye movement system is an excellent model for studying the flexibility of human behaviors because of its extensively investigated neurophysiological basis (Basso and Wurtz 1997;Carpenter 1999;Schall 2004;Schall and Hanes 1993;Schiller and Kendall 2004; for review see Schall 2001 for review see Schall , 2009Schall and Thompson 1999). It is well known that pro-and antisaccades reflect the operation of different cognitive components. Over the last decade, researchers have shown that the saccadic eye movement system can be influenced by a wide range of cognitive factors, including attention (Baldauf and Deubel

Trial type probability modulates the cost of antisaccades

“…Kristjánsson et al (2001) found that shifting attention to a secondary task before saccade target onset can interfere with the reflexive prosaccade and consequently allow faster antisaccades. Liu et al (2010) found that spatial probability of saccade locations can also effectively modulate the antisaccade cost. Most important, Olk and Kingstone (2003) found that antisaccade cost can also be altered by changing the way pro-and antisaccade trials are organized.…”

“…They found facilitation only in prosaccades to the high-probability location and no effect of probability on antisaccades. Their results suggest that the visual system's sensitivity to probability is not a simple location-and-response coupling, but a process that incorporates task (e.g., saccade type) and location information and other possible events that together provide specific probabilistic contexts (Liu et al 2010). In the present study, we tested whether the visual system can also be sensitive to "events" (e.g., trial type probability in current study) that are intangible but predictive.…”

“…The effects of prior probabilistic information on saccadic performance have been well documented. For example, gaze is directed to specific locations faster when they represent higher likelihoods of target presence based on past experience (e.g., Carpenter and Williams 1995;Gmeindl et al 2005;Liu et al 2010;Miller 1988;Milstein and Dorris 2007; for recent reviews see Angelaki et al 2009;Summerfield and Egner 2009). Most importantly, this utilization of probabilistic information is not constrained at the simple stimulus-and-response level, because it can also be observed when the task requires visual analysis and response selection.…”

“…Most importantly, this utilization of probabilistic information is not constrained at the simple stimulus-and-response level, because it can also be observed when the task requires visual analysis and response selection. Recently, Liu et al (2010) used a central cue to indicate to participants whether they should saccade to (prosaccade) or away from (antisaccade) an oddball stimulus. Of the four possible saccade locations, one location enjoyed higher probability of being selected than the other three locations, but only for prosaccades.…”

GazeAlyze: a MATLAB toolbox for the analysis of eye movement data

“…Other studies have investigated situations in which multiple objects must be tracked and have found that eye gaze is directed more toward the centroid of the target group than to any single target (Fehd & Seiffert, 2008;Huff, Papenmeier, Jahn, & Hesse, 2010) The relationship between attention and eye movements has also been discussed in some literature reviews (Rayner, 2009;Theeuwes, Belopolsky, & Olivers, 2009). Research into visual behavior is motivated by applied psychological questions; the main topics of such research include the processing of facial expressions in social cognition (Brassen, Gamer, Rose, & Buchel, 2010;Domes et al, 2010;Gamer, Zurowski, & Buchel, 2010), the flexibility in the cognitive control of the oculomotor system analyzed in antisaccade paradigms (Liu et al, 2010;Stigchel, Imants, & Richard Ridderinkhof, 2011), and the experimental research of speech processing (Cho & Thompson, 2010;Myung et al, 2010). Eye movement data must undergo a principal processing pipeline including the following modules.…”