Abstract
Visual attention is typically shifted toward the targets of upcoming saccadic eye movements. This observation is commonly interpreted in terms of an obligatory coupling between attentional selection and oculomotor programming. Here, we investigated whether this coupling is facilitated by a habitual expectation of spatial congruence between visual and motor targets. To this end, we conducted a dual-task (i.e., concurrent saccade task and visual discrimination task) experiment in which male and female participants were trained to either anticipate spatial congruence or incongruence between a saccade target and an attention probe stimulus. To assess training-induced effects of expectation on premotor attention allocation, participants subsequently completed a test phase in which the attention probe position was randomized. Results revealed that discrimination performance was systematically biased toward the expected attention probe position, irrespective of whether this position matched the saccade target or not. Overall, our findings demonstrate that visual attention can be substantially decoupled from ongoing oculomotor programming and suggest an important role of habitual expectations in the attention-action coupling.
Item Type: | Journal article |
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Faculties: | Psychology and Education Science > Department Psychology |
Subjects: | 100 Philosophy and Psychology > 150 Psychology |
URN: | urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-118404-3 |
ISSN: | 00426989 |
Language: | English |
Item ID: | 118404 |
Date Deposited: | 05. Jul 2024, 06:45 |
Last Modified: | 12. Jul 2024, 07:21 |