Microsaccades transiently lateralise EEG alpha activity

Liu, Baiwei; Nobre, Anna C.; Ede, Freek van

doi:10.1101/2022.09.02.506318

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(116 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We focused our analysis on spatial biases in gaze shifts (saccades/microsaccades). To identify gaze shifts, we employed a velocity-based method that we established in our prior studies 17,43 , that builds on other velocity-based detection methods (e.g. 9 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jointly looking to the past and the future in visual working memory

Liu

Alexopoulou

Ede

2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Working memory enables us to bridge past sensory information to upcoming future behaviour. Accordingly, by its very nature, working memory is concerned with two components: the past and the future. Yet, in conventional laboratory tasks, these two components are often conflated, such as when sensory information in working memory is encoded and tested at the same location. We developed a task in which we dissociated the past (encoded location) and future (to-be-tested location) attributes of visual contents in working memory. This enabled us to independently track the utilisation of past and future memory attributes through gaze, as observed during mnemonic selection. Our results reveal the joint consideration of past and future locations. This was prevalent even at the single-trial level of individual saccades that were jointly biased to the past and future. This uncovers the rich nature of working memory representations, whereby both past and future memory attributes are retained and can be accessed together when memory contents become relevant for behaviour.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jointly looking to the past and the future in visual working memory

Liu

Alexopoulou

Ede

2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The topographic modulation of alpha power (i.e. power reduction) was associated with consistent eye movements towards the contralateral visual hemifield 36-38 . We here set out to test the link between eye movements and alpha/beta activity in the context of episodic memory formation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The topographic modulation of alpha power (i.e. power reduction) was associated with consistent eye movements towards the contralateral visual hemifield [36][37][38] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Cortico-ocular coupling in the service of episodic memory formation

Popov

Staudigl

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Encoding of visual information is a necessary requirement for most types of episodic memories. In search for a neural signature of memory formation, amplitude modulation of neural activity has been repeatedly shown to correlate with and suggested to be functionally involved in successful memory encoding. We here report a complementary view on why and how brain activity relates to memory, indicating a functional role of cortico-ocular interactions for episodic memory formation. Recording simultaneous magnetoencephalography and eye tracking in 35 human participants, we demonstrate that gaze variability and amplitude modulations of alpha/beta oscillations (10-20 Hz) in visual cortex covary and predict subsequent memory performance between and within participants. Amplitude variation during pre-stimulus baseline was associated with gaze direction variability, echoing the co-variation observed during scene encoding. We conclude that encoding of visual information engages unison coupling between oculomotor and visual areas in the service of memory formation.

show abstract

“…It will thus be important for future research to identify the underlying mechanisms of the observed effects. Potential links to alpha modulations (Liu, Nobre, & Ede, 2022; Liu, Nobre, & van Ede, 2022; Popov et al, 2021, 2022) or arousal states with regards to (sub)cortical neurotransmitter-dependent modulations (Schuerman et al, 2022) could be investigated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movements track prioritized auditory features in selective attention to natural speech

Gehmacher

Schubert

Schmidt

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last decades, cognitive neuroscience has identified a distributed set of brain regions that are critical for attention - one of the key principles of adaptive behavior. A strong anatomical overlap with brain regions critical for oculomotor processes suggests a joint network for attention and eye movements. However, the role of this shared network in complex, naturalistic environments remains understudied. Here, we investigated eye movements in relation to (un)attended sentences of natural speech in simultaneously recorded eye tracking and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data. Using temporal response functions (TRF), we show that eye gaze tracks acoustic features (envelope and acoustic onsets) of attended speech, a phenomenon we termed ocular speech tracking. Ocular speech envelope tracking even differentiates a target from a distractor in a multi speaker context and is further related to intelligibility. Moreover, we provide evidence for its contribution to neural differences in speech processing, emphasizing the necessity to consider oculomotor activity in future research and in the interpretation of neural differences in auditory cognition. Our results extend previous findings of a joint network of attention and eye movement control as well as motor theories of speech. They provide valuable new directions for research into the neurobiological mechanisms of the phenomenon, its dependence on learning and plasticity, and its functional implications in social communication.

show abstract

Microsaccades transiently lateralise EEG alpha activity

Cited by 9 publications

References 63 publications

Jointly looking to the past and the future in visual working memory

Jointly looking to the past and the future in visual working memory

Cortico-ocular coupling in the service of episodic memory formation

Eye movements track prioritized auditory features in selective attention to natural speech

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About