Eye movements are an important part of the story, but not the whole story

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle R. Cave
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Visual Targets ◽  
Selection Mechanisms

AbstractSome previous accounts of visual search have emphasized covert attention at the expense of eye movements, and others have focused on eye movements while ignoring covert attention. Both selection mechanisms are likely to contribute to many searches, and a full account of search will probably need to explain how the two interact to find visual targets.

Caudal Prefrontal Cortex

2021 ◽  
pp. 153-190
Author(s):  
Richard E. Passingham
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Cluttered Environment ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Sensory Responses ◽  
Search For Objects ◽  
Oculomotor Nuclei

The caudal prefrontal (PF) cortex supports the visual search for objects such as foods both through eye movements and covert attention, and its connections explain how it can do this. The caudal PF cortex, which includes the frontal eye field, has connections with both the dorsal and ventral visual streams. The direction of eye movements depends on its connections with the superior colliculus and oculomotor nuclei. Covert attention depends on enhanced sensory responses that are mediated through top-down interactions with posterior sensory areas. Along with the granular parts of the orbital PF cortex, the caudal PF cortex evolved in early primates. Together, these two new areas led to improvements in searching for and evaluating objects that are hidden in a cluttered environment.

scholarly journals Visual search training benefits from the integrative effect of enhanced covert attention and optimized overt eye movements

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qi Zhang ◽  
Zhibang Huang ◽  
Liang Li ◽  
Sheng Li
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Search Performance ◽  
Initiation Time ◽  
Training Effects ◽  
Trained Subjects ◽  
Scanning Time ◽  
Search Training

Visual search in a complex environment requires efficient discrimination between target and distractors. Training serves as an effective approach to improve visual search performance when the target does not automatically pop out from the distractors. In the present study, we trained subjects on a conjunction visual search task and examined the training effects in behavior and eye movement from Experiments 1 to 4. The results showed that training improved behavioral performance and reduced the number of saccades and overall scanning time. Training also increased the search initiation time before the first saccade and the proportion of trials in which the subjects correctly identified the target without any saccade, but these effects were modulated by stimulus' parameters. In Experiment 5, we replicated these training effects when eye movements and EEG signals were recorded simultaneously. The results revealed significant N2pc components after the stimulus onset (i.e., stimulus-locked) and before the first saccade (i.e., saccade-locked) when the search target was the trained one. These N2pc components can be considered as the neural signatures for the training-induced boost of covert attention to the trained target. The enhanced covert attention led to a beneficial tradeoff between search initiation time and the number of saccades as a small amount of increase in search initiation time could result in a larger reduction in scanning time. These findings suggest that the enhanced covert attention to target and optimized overt eye movements are coordinated together to facilitate visual search training.

Visual search for multiple targets gives no evidence of amnesic covert attention

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason S. McCarley ◽  
Matthew S. Peterson ◽  
Arthur F. Kramer ◽  
Ranxiao Frances Wang ◽  
David E. Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Multiple Targets

scholarly journals Attention and its Role: Theories and Models

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Athanasios Drigas ◽  
Maria Karyotaki
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Inhibition Of Return ◽  
Saliency Map ◽  
Saccadic Suppression ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Attentional Deployment ◽  
Affect And Cognition ◽  
Visual Scenes ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Complete Account

Motivation, affect and cognition are interrelated. However, the control of attentional deployment and more specifically, attempting to provide a more complete account of the interactions between the dorsal and ventral processing streams is still a challenge. The interaction between overt and covert attention is particularly important for models concerned with visual search. Further modeling of such interactions can assist to scrutinize many mechanisms, such as saccadic suppression, dynamic remapping of the saliency map and inhibition of return, covert pre-selection of targets for overt saccades and online understanding of complex visual scenes.

Sensorimotor transformation during eye movements to remembered visual targets

1991 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 693-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Gnadt ◽  
R. Martyn Bracewell ◽  
Richard A. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Sensorimotor Transformation ◽  
Visual Targets

scholarly journals LIP activity in the interstimulus interval of a change detection task biases the behavioral response

2015 ◽  
Vol 114 (5) ◽  
pp. 2637-2648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice Arcizet ◽  
Koorosh Mirpour ◽  
Daniel J. Foster ◽  
Caroline J. Charpentier ◽  
James W. Bisley
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Behavioral Response ◽  
Interstimulus Interval ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Change Detection Task ◽  
Lateral Intraparietal Area ◽  
Overt Attention ◽  
The World

When looking around at the world, we can only attend to a limited number of locations. The lateral intraparietal area (LIP) is thought to play a role in guiding both covert attention and eye movements. In this study, we tested the involvement of LIP in both mechanisms with a change detection task. In the task, animals had to indicate whether an element changed during a blank in the trial by making a saccade to it. If no element changed, they had to maintain fixation. We examine how the animal's behavior is biased based on LIP activity prior to the presentation of the stimulus the animal must respond to. When the activity was high, the animal was more likely to make an eye movement toward the stimulus, even if there was no change; when the activity was low, the animal either had a slower reaction time or maintained fixation, even if a change occurred. We conclude that LIP activity is involved in both covert and overt attention, but when decisions about eye movements are to be made, this role takes precedence over guiding covert attention.

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