scholarly journals Oculomotor capture by stimuli that signal the availability of reward

2015 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 2316-2327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Failing ◽  
Tom Nissens ◽  
Daniel Pearson ◽  
Mike Le Pelley ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Early Selection ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Oculomotor Capture ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
High Reward ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Task

It is well known that eye movement patterns are influenced by both goal- and salience-driven factors. Recent studies, however, have demonstrated that objects that are nonsalient and task irrelevant can still capture our eyes if moving our eyes to those objects has previously produced reward. Here we demonstrate that training such an association between eye movements to an object and delivery of reward is not needed. Instead, an object that merely signals the availability of reward captures the eyes even when it is physically nonsalient and never relevant for the task. Furthermore, we show that oculomotor capture by reward is more reliably observed in saccades with short latencies. We conclude that a stimulus signaling high reward has the ability to capture the eyes independently of bottom-up physical salience or top-down task relevance and that the effect of reward affects early selection processes.

scholarly journals Color Can Shorten Breakthrough Times in Continuous Flash Suppression through Increased Salience and Task Relevance

Vision ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Christian Valuch
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Interocular Suppression ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Mediated Effects ◽  
Dominant Eye ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
And Task

Color can enhance the perception of relevant stimuli by increasing their salience and guiding visual search towards stimuli that match a task-relevant color. Using Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS), the current study investigated whether color facilitates the discrimination of targets that are difficult to perceive due to interocular suppression. Gabor patterns of two or four cycles per degree (cpd) were shown as targets to the non-dominant eye of human participants. CFS masks were presented at a rate of 10 Hz to the dominant eye, and participants had the task to report the target’s orientation as soon as they could discriminate it. The 2-cpd targets were robustly suppressed and resulted in much longer response times compared to 4-cpd targets. Moreover, only for 2-cpd targets, two color-related effects were evident. First, in trials where targets and CFS masks had different colors, targets were reported faster than in trials where targets and CFS masks had the same color. Second, targets with a known color, either cyan or yellow, were reported earlier than targets whose color was randomly cyan or yellow. The results suggest that the targets’ entry to consciousness may have been speeded by color-mediated effects relating to increased (bottom-up) salience and (top-down) task relevance.

Our Eyes do Not Always Go Where we Want Them to Go: Capture of the Eyes by New Objects

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 379-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Theeuwes ◽  
Arthur F. Kramer ◽  
Sowon Hahn ◽  
David E. Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Parallel Programming ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Color Singleton ◽  
Rapid Eye Movements ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Singleton Target

Observers make rapid eye movements to examine the world around them. Before an eye movement is made, attention is covertly shifted to the location of the object of interest. The eyes typically will land at the position at which attention is directed. Here we report that a goal-directed eye movement toward a uniquely colored object is disrupted by the appearance of a new but task-irrelevant object, unless subjects have a sufficient amount of time to focus their attention on the location of the target prior to the appearance of the new object. In many instances, the eyes started moving toward the new object before gaze started to shift to the color-singleton target. The eyes often landed for a very short period of time (25–150 ms) near the new object. The results suggest parallel programming of two saccades: one voluntary, goal-directed eye movement toward the color-singleton target and one stimulus-driven eye movement reflexively elicited by the appearance of the new object. Neuroanatomical structures responsible for parallel programming of saccades are discussed.

scholarly journals Additive and interactive effects of spatial attention and expectation on perceptual decisions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianna Zuanazzi ◽  
Uta Noppeney
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Signal Probability ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Perceptual Inference ◽  
Effective Interactions ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Task Irrelevant

AbstractSpatial attention and expectation are two critical top-down mechanisms controlling perceptual inference. Based on previous research it remains unclear whether their influence on perceptual decisions is additive or interactive.We developed a novel multisensory approach that orthogonally manipulated spatial attention (i.e. task relevance) and expectation (i.e. signal probability) selectively in audition and evaluated their effects on observers’ responses in vision. Critically, while experiment 1 manipulated expectation directly via the probability of task-relevant auditory targets across hemifields, experiment 2 manipulated it indirectly via task-irrelevant auditory non-targets.Surprisingly, our results demonstrate that spatial attention and signal probability influence perceptual decisions either additively or interactively. These seemingly contradictory results can be explained parsimoniously by a model that combines spatial attention, general and spatially selective response probabilities as predictors with no direct influence of signal probability. Our model provides a novel perspective on how spatial attention and expectations facilitate effective interactions with the environment.

scholarly journals Top-down attentional control in spatially coincident stimuli enhances activity in both task-relevant and task-irrelevant regions of cortex

2009 ◽  
Vol 197 (1) ◽  
pp. 186-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
K ERICKSON ◽  
R PRAKASH ◽  
J KIM ◽  
B SUTTON ◽  
S COLCOMBE ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Control ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Task

The Role of Awareness in Processing of Oculomotor Capture: Evidence from Event-related Potentials

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 2285-2297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artem V. Belopolsky ◽  
Arthur F. Kramer ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Error Detection ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Oculomotor Capture ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Subjective Awareness ◽  
Error Detection And Correction ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Previous research has shown that task-irrelevant onsets trigger an eye movement in their direction. Such oculomotor capture is often impervious to conscious awareness. The present study used event-related brain potentials to examine how such oculomotor errors are detected, evaluated, and compensated for and whether awareness of an error played a role at any of these stages of processing. The results show that the early processes of error detection and correction (as represented by the error-related negativity and the parietal N1) are not directly affected by subjective awareness of making an error. Instead, they seem to be modulated by the degree of temporal overlap between the programming of the correct and erroneous saccade. We found that only a later component (the error-related positivity [Pe]) is modulated by awareness of making an erroneous eye movement. We propose that awareness of oculomotor capture primarily depends on this later process.

Sequential Modulations of Valence Processing in the Emotional Stroop Task

2008 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 151-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfried Kunde ◽  
Nadine Mauer
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Preceding Trial ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Emotional Stroop ◽  
Emotional Stroop Task ◽  
Affective Content ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Task

Abstract. This study investigated trial-to-trial modulations of the processing of irrelevant valence information. Participants (N = 126) responded to the frame color of pictures with positive, neutral, or negative affective content - a procedure known as an emotional Stroop task (EST). As is typically found, positive and negative pictures delayed responses as compared to neutral pictures. However, the type and extent of this valence-based interference depended on the irrelevant picture valence in the preceding trial. Whereas preceding exposure to negative valence prompted interference from positive and negative pictures, such interference was removed after neutral trials. Following positive pictures, interference from negative but not from positive pictures was observed. We suggest that these sequential modulations reflect automatic self-regulatory selection processes that help to keep the balance between attending to task-relevant information and task-irrelevant information that signals important changes in the environment.

Contextual and social cues may dominate natural visual search

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Henriksson ◽  
Riitta Hari
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Search Behavior ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Task

AbstractA framework where only the size of the functional visual field of fixations can vary is hardly able to explain natural visual-search behavior. In real-world search tasks, context guides eye movements, and task-irrelevant social stimuli may capture the gaze.

scholarly journals The N170 event-related potential differentiates congruent and incongruent gaze responses in gaze leading

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-486
Author(s):  
Lisa J Stephenson ◽  
S Gareth Edwards ◽  
Natacha M Luri ◽  
Louis Renoult ◽  
Andrew P Bayliss
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Gaze Shift ◽  
Face Stimuli ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
First Time ◽  
Relevant Experiment ◽  
And Task

Abstract To facilitate social interactions, humans need to process the responses that other people make to their actions, including eye movements that could establish joint attention. Here, we investigated the neurophysiological correlates of the processing of observed gaze responses following the participants’ own eye movement. These observed gaze responses could either establish, or fail to establish, joint attention. We implemented a gaze leading paradigm in which participants made a saccade from an on-screen face to an object, followed by the on-screen face either making a congruent or incongruent gaze shift. An N170 event-related potential was elicited by the peripherally located gaze shift stimulus. Critically, the N170 was greater for joint attention than non-joint gaze both when task-irrelevant (Experiment 1) and task-relevant (Experiment 2). These data suggest for the first time that the neurocognitive system responsible for structural encoding of face stimuli is affected by the establishment of participant-initiated joint attention.

scholarly journals Mental rotation: The effects of processing strategy, gender and task characteristics on children's accuracy, reaction time and eye movements’ pattern

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorit Taragin ◽  
David Tzuriel ◽  
Eli Vakil
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Mental Rotation ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Movement Pattern ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Difficulty Level ◽  
Task Characteristics ◽  
Spatial Span ◽  
And Task

The effects of gender, strategy and task characteristics on children's mental rotation (MR) behavioral measures and eye movements were studied. Eye movements reflect thinking pattern and assist understanding mental rotation performance. Eighty-three fourth-grade children (44 boys and 39 girls) were administered the Computerized Windows Mental Rotation test (CWMR) while having their eye movements monitored and completed a Strategy Self-Report (global/local/combined) and a Spatial Span (WM) subtest. Difficulty level affected performance and was reflected in a different eye movement pattern. Boys were more accurate than girls, but they did not differ in their eye movement pattern. Eye movement pattern was related to strategy, accuracy and reaction time, revealing that the global and combined strategy were more effective compared with local strategy. WM was found to correlate with accuracy at the easy level of the test. The usage of eye movement measures assists in elaborating our knowledge regarding MR performance among children and enable a wider understanding regarding the interaction between gender, strategy and difficulty level. 

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