Keywords
attentional capture, inhibition of return, microsaccades
Abstract
When a cue is presented at a location, orienting efficacy towards that location is improved relative to other locations (“attentional capture”), but only briefly; a mere few hundred milliseconds later, orienting incurs large costs. These costs have been classically termed “inhibition of return” (IOR), alluding to voluntary, cognitive strategies avoiding perseverance at one location. However, despite this popular hypothesis, the origins of both attentional capture and IOR remain elusive. Here we show that both of these phenomena can be accounted for by a single concept of oculomotor rhythmicity, and one that involves the entire gamut of saccadic activity including microsaccades. Our model posits that cues reset the phase of ongoing 1.5-3 Hz microsaccadic temporal frequency rhythms; attentional capture and IOR simply depend on the post-cue phase of the reset rhythms at which subsequent targets appear. We conclude that “attentional capture” and “IOR” may surprisingly be simple emergent properties of motor rhythmicity. More broadly, the strong explanatory power of phase modulation in our model suggests that attentional alterations may be manifestations of existing oscillatory brain fluctuations, which are merely uncovered when cues reset them.
Start Date
13-5-2015 11:05 AM
End Date
13-5-2015 11:30 AM
Session Number
01
Session Title
Motion, Attention, and Eye Movements
Included in
A Model of Repetitive Microsaccades, Coupled with Pre-microsaccadic Changes in Vision, is Sufficient to Account for Both Attentional Capture and Inhibition of Return in Posner Cueing
When a cue is presented at a location, orienting efficacy towards that location is improved relative to other locations (“attentional capture”), but only briefly; a mere few hundred milliseconds later, orienting incurs large costs. These costs have been classically termed “inhibition of return” (IOR), alluding to voluntary, cognitive strategies avoiding perseverance at one location. However, despite this popular hypothesis, the origins of both attentional capture and IOR remain elusive. Here we show that both of these phenomena can be accounted for by a single concept of oculomotor rhythmicity, and one that involves the entire gamut of saccadic activity including microsaccades. Our model posits that cues reset the phase of ongoing 1.5-3 Hz microsaccadic temporal frequency rhythms; attentional capture and IOR simply depend on the post-cue phase of the reset rhythms at which subsequent targets appear. We conclude that “attentional capture” and “IOR” may surprisingly be simple emergent properties of motor rhythmicity. More broadly, the strong explanatory power of phase modulation in our model suggests that attentional alterations may be manifestations of existing oscillatory brain fluctuations, which are merely uncovered when cues reset them.