Urgency reveals an attentional vortex during antisaccade performance

Abstract

In the antisaccade task, which is considered a sensitive assay of cognitive function, a salient 1 visual cue appears and the participant must look away from it. This requires sensory, motor-2 planning, and cognitive neural mechanisms. But what are the unique contributions of these 3 mechanisms to performance, and when exactly are they engaged? By introducing an urgency 4 requirement into the antisaccade task, we track the evolution of the choice process with mil-5 lisecond resolution and find a singular, nonlinear dependence on cue exposure: when viewed 6 briefly (∼100-140 ms), the cue captures attention so powerfully that looking at it (erroneously) 7 is virtually inevitable, but as the cue viewing time increases, the probability of success quickly 8 rises and saturates. The psychophysical and modeling results reveal concerted interactions be-9 tween reflexive and voluntary cognitive mechanisms that (1) unfold extremely rapidly, (2) are 10 qualitatively consistent across participants, and (3) are nevertheless quantitatively distinctive 11 of each individual's perceptual capacities.12