scholarly journals Microsaccades as an overt measure of covert attention shifts

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (22) ◽  
pp. 2533-2545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziad M Hafed ◽  
James J Clark
Keyword(s):  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attention Shifts

scholarly journals Overt and covert attention shifts to emotional faces – combining EEG, Eye-tracking and a Go/No-go paradigm

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louisa Kulke ◽  
Lena Brümmer ◽  
Arezoo Pooresmaeili ◽  
Annekathrin Schacht
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Content ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Attention Shifts

In everyday life, faces with emotional expressions quickly attract attention and eye-movements. To study the neural mechanisms of such emotion-driven attention by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs), tasks that employ covert shifts of attention are commonly used, in which participants need to inhibit natural eye-movements towards stimuli. It remains, however, unclear how shifts of attention to emotional faces with and without eye-movements differ from each other. The current preregistered study aimed to investigate neural differences between covert and overt emotion-driven attention. We combined eye-tracking with measurements of ERPs to compare shifts of attention to faces with happy, angry or neutral expressions when eye-movements were either executed (Go conditions) or withheld (No-go conditions). Happy and angry faces led to larger EPN amplitudes, shorter latencies of the P1 component and faster saccades, suggesting that emotional expressions significantly affected shifts of attention. Several ERPs (N170, EPN, LPC), were augmented in amplitude when attention was shifted with an eye-movement, indicating an enhanced neural processing of faces if eye-movements had to be executed together with a reallocation of attention. However, the modulation of ERPs by facial expressions did not differ between the Go and No-go conditions, suggesting that emotional content enhances both covert and overt shifts of attention. In summary, our results indicate that overt and covert attention shifts differ but are comparably affected by emotional content.

scholarly journals Have a look - the role of covert attention shifts for object integration: Evidence from pupillometry.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 1867
Author(s):  
Leonie Nowack ◽  
Hermann J. Müller ◽  
Markus Conci
Keyword(s):  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attention Shifts

scholarly journals Overt and covert attention shifts to emotional faces: Combining EEG, eye tracking, and a go/no‐go paradigm

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louisa Kulke ◽  
Lena Brümmer ◽  
Arezoo Pooresmaeili ◽  
Annekathrin Schacht
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Attention Shifts

scholarly journals Neural representations of covert attention across saccades: comparing pattern similarity to shifting and holding attention during fixation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoli Zhang ◽  
Julie D Golomb
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attention Shift ◽  
Attention Condition ◽  
Initial Location ◽  
Pattern Similarity ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Attention Shifts

AbstractWe can focus visuospatial attention by covertly attending to relevant locations, moving our eyes, or both simultaneously. How does shifting versus holding covert attention during fixation compare with maintaining covert attention across saccades? We acquired fMRI data during a combined saccade and covert attention task. On Eyes-fixed trials, participants either held attention at the same initial location (“hold attention”) or shifted attention to another location midway through the trial (“shift attention”). On Eyes-move trials, participants made a saccade midway through the trial, while maintaining attention in one of two reference frames: The “retinotopic attention” condition involved holding attention at a fixation-relative location but shifting to a different screen-centered location, whereas the “spatiotopic attention” condition involved holding attention on the same screen-centered location but shifting relative to fixation. We localized the brain network sensitive to attention shifts (shift > hold attention), and used multivoxel pattern time course analyses to investigate the patterns of brain activity for spatiotopic and retinotopic attention. In the attention shift network, we found transient information about both whether covert shifts were made and whether saccades were executed. Moreover, in the attention shift network, both retinotopic and spatiotopic conditions were represented more similarly to shifting than to holding covert attention. An exploratory searchlight analysis revealed additional regions where spatiotopic was relatively more similar to shifting and retinotopic more to holding. Thus, maintaining retinotopic and spatiotopic attention across saccades may involve different types of updating that vary in similarity to covert attention “hold” and “shift” signals across different regions.Significance StatementTo our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to directly compare human brain activity patterns of covert attention (to a peripheral spatial location) across saccades and during fixation. We applied fMRI multivoxel pattern time course analyses to capture the dynamic changes of activity patterns, with specific focus on the critical timepoints related to attention shifts and saccades. Our findings indicate that both retinotopic and spatiotopic attention across saccades produce patterns of activation similar to “shifting” attention in the brain, even though both tasks could be interpreted as “holding” attention by the participant. The results offer a novel perspective to understand how the brain processes and updates spatial information under different circumstances to fit the needs of various cognitive tasks.

scholarly journals Superior colliculus inactivation alters the influence of covert attention shifts on microsaccades

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 495-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Hafed ◽  
L. Lovejoy ◽  
R. Krauzlis
Keyword(s):  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attention Shifts

A Temporal Stability Approach to Position and Attention-Shift-Invariant Recognition

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 2293-2321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhua Li ◽  
James J. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Temporal Integration ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Local Features ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attention Shift ◽  
Perceptual Stability ◽  
Shift Invariance ◽  
Attention Shifts

Incorporation of visual-related self-action signals can help neural networks learn invariance. We describe a method that can produce a network with invariance to changes in visual input caused by eye movements and covert attention shifts. Training of the network is controlled by signals associated with eye movements and covert attention shifting. A temporal perceptual stability constraint is used to drive the output of the network toward remaining constant across temporal sequences of saccadicmotions and covert attention shifts. We use a four-layer neural network model to perform the position-invariant extraction of local features and temporal integration of invariant presentations of local features in a bottom-up structure. We present results on both simulated data and real images to demonstrate that our network can acquire both position and attention shift invariance.

Pain Influences Several Levels of Attention

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid von Bueren Jarchow ◽  
Bogdan P. Radanov ◽  
Lutz Jäncke
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Divided Attention ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Attentional Deficits ◽  
Control Subjects ◽  
Chronic Pain Patients ◽  
Divided Attention Task ◽  
Pain Stimuli ◽  
Pain Patients

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to examine to what extent chronic pain has an impact on various attentional processes. To measure these attention processes a set of experimental standard tests of the “Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” (TAP), a neuropsychological battery testing different levels of attention, were used: alertness, divided attention, covert attention, vigilance, visual search, and Go-NoGo tasks. 24 chronic outpatients and 24 well-matched healthy control subjects were tested. The control subjects were matched for age, gender, and education. The group of chronic pain patients exhibited marked deficiencies in all attentional functions except for the divided attention task. Thus, the data supports the notion that chronic pain negatively influences attention because pain patients` attention is strongly captivated by the internal pain stimuli. Only the more demanding divided attention task has the capability to distract the focus of attention to the pain stimuli. Therefore, the pain patients are capable of performing within normal limits. Based on these findings chronic pain patients' attentional deficits should be appropriately evaluated and considered for insurance and work related matters. The effect of a successful distraction away from the pain in the divided attention task can also open new therapeutic aspects.

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