Spatial and temporal attention revealed by microsaccades

Abstract

We compared the spatial and temporal allocation of attention as revealed by microsaccades. Observers viewed several concurrent "rapid serial visual presentation" (RSVP) streams in the periphery while maintaining fixation. They continually attended to, and discriminated targets in one particular, cued stream. Over and above this continuous allocation, spatial attention transients ("attention shifts") were prompted by changes in the cued stream location and temporal attention transients ("attentional blinks") by successful target discriminations. Note that the RSVP paradigm avoided the preparatory suppression of microsaccades in anticipation of stimulus or task events, which had been prominent in earlier studies. Both stream changes and target discriminations evoked residual modulations of microsaccade rate and direction, which were consistent with the presumed attentional dynamics in each case (i.e., attention shift and attentional blink, respectively). Interestingly, even microsaccades associated with neither stream change nor target discrimination reflected the continuous allocation of attention, inasmuch as their direction was aligned with the meridian of the target stream. We conclude that attentional allocation shapes microsaccadic activity continuously, not merely during dynamic episodes such as attentional shifts or blinks.

Oculomotor behavior of blind patients seeing with a subretinal visual implant

“…3C). These pairs of small, opposing fixational saccades are sometimes referred to as ''square waves'' (Abadi, Scallan, & Clement, 2000;Feldon & Langston, 1977;Hafed & Clark, 2002), and they have been previously related to factors beyond just oculomotor control, like visual attention (Hafed & Clark, 2002;Pastukhov & Braun, 2010;Pastukhov et al, 2012). In our patients, these square waves were similar to those exhibited by controls (compare to Fig.…”

“…involvement of fixational eye movements in cognitive processes like attention beyond just retinal image modulation (Engbert & Kliegl, 2003;Hafed, 2013;Hafed & Clark, 2002;Pastukhov & Braun, 2010;Pastukhov et al, 2012). Thus, the presence of fixational and non-fixational eye movements in our patients provides strong support for the use of light sensitive subretinal implants, as they can harness the full power of ocular motility in the patients.…”

Distinctive features of microsaccades in Alzheimer’s disease and in mild cognitive impairment

“…This result is consistent with numerous research reports indicating a relationship between microsaccade direction biases and higher cognitive processes such as attention (Engbert and Kliegl 2003;Engbert 2006;Otero-Millan et al 2008) and working memory (Valsecchi et al 2007;Valsecchi and Turatto 2008) in humans and primates. Moreover, recent research indicates that microsaccade directions reflect the continuous allocation of attention; thus, it is important to localize an observer's attentional focus even during simple fixation tasks (Pastukhov et al 2013).…”

Attentional modulation: Target selection, active search and cognitive processing

“…These results indicate that both pursuit and saccades are driven by a common target selection mechanism. Further exploring the link between attention and eye movements, Patsukhov et al (2013) investigated the role of another eye movement – microsaccades – in a covert attention task. They used microsaccades to reveal the spatial and temporal deployment of attention in a RSVP task.…”