Attention doesn't slide: spatiotopic updating after eye movements instantiates a new, discrete attentional locus

Atten Percept Psychophys. 2011 Jan;73(1):7-14. doi: 10.3758/s13414-010-0016-3.

Abstract

During natural vision, eye movements can drastically alter the retinotopic (eye-centered) coordinates of locations and objects, yet the spatiotopic (world-centered) percept remains stable. Maintaining visuospatial attention in spatiotopic coordinates requires updating of attentional representations following each eye movement. However, this updating is not instantaneous; attentional facilitation temporarily lingers at the previous retinotopic location after a saccade, a phenomenon known as the retinotopic attentional trace. At various times after a saccade, we probed attention at an intermediate location between the retinotopic and spatiotopic locations to determine whether a single locus of attentional facilitation slides progressively from the previous retinotopic location to the appropriate spatiotopic location, or whether retinotopic facilitation decays while a new, independent spatiotopic locus concurrently becomes active. Facilitation at the intermediate location was not significant at any time, suggesting that top-down attention can result in enhancement of discrete retinotopic and spatiotopic locations without passing through intermediate locations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Female
  • Fixation, Ocular / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Neural Pathways / physiology
  • Orientation / physiology*
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology*
  • Psychophysics
  • Retina / physiology*
  • Saccades / physiology*
  • Visual Cortex / physiology*
  • Young Adult