Commentary: Visual attention is not deployed at the endpoint of averaging saccades

Frontiers in Psychology

Stefan Van der Stigchel¹ 

关键词: eye movements;    saccades;    attention;    vision;    action;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02166

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

When awake, we constantly interact with our visual surroundings. To guide us, our behavior is selective: Rather than processing all objects to the same extent, we prioritize objects of interest. Primarily, this is achieved by overt attentional shifts: We sequentially focus the fovea on objects of interest by moving our eyes. However, locations can also be prioritized by shifting attention covertly, without physical movement. The premotor theory of attention hypothesizes that both these attentional shifts are driven by our oculomotor system (Rizzolatti et al., 1987, 1994). Specifically, a covert attentional shift is suggested to be a direct result of the preparation of an overt eye movement. The hallmark theory finds bases in early physiological studies which observed that visually-responsive neurons in the superior colliculus react more vigorously toward spots of light when they are the destination of an upcoming saccade (Wurtz and Mohler, 1976) and demonstrations that saccades are consistently preceded by a covert attentional shift (Kowler et al., 1995; Deubel and Schneider, 1996).

【 授权许可】

CC BY