 Title: Covert Attention Regulates Saccadic Reaction Time by Routing between Different Visual-oculomotor Pathways  Running Head: Covert Attention Routes Visual-oculomotor Pathways Covert Attention Regulates Saccadic Reaction Time by Routing between Different Visual-oculomotor Pathways

Routing between Different Visual-oculomotor Pathways Covert Attention Regulates Saccadic Reaction Time By

Covert attention regulates saccadic reaction time by routing between different visual-oculomotor pathways.

Covert attention modulates saccadic performance, e.g., the abrupt onset of a task-irrelevant visual stimulus grabs attention as measured by a decrease in saccadic reaction time (SRT). The attentional advantage bestowed by the task-irrelevant stimulus is short-lived: SRT is actually longer ~200 ms after the onset of a stimulus than it is when no stimulus appears, known as inhibition of return. T...

Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts

During saccadic eye movements, the processing of visual information is transiently interrupted by a mechanism known as "saccadic suppression" [1] that is thought to ensure perceptual stability [2]. If, as proposed in the premotor theory of attention [3], covert shifts of attention rely on sub-threshold recruitment of oculomotor circuits, then saccadic suppression should also occur during covert...

Visuomotor Origins of Covert Spatial Attention

Covert spatial attention produces biases in perceptual performance and neural processing of behaviorally relevant stimuli in the absence of overt orienting movements. The neural mechanism that gives rise to these effects is poorly understood. This paper surveys past evidence of a relationship between oculomotor control and visual spatial attention and more recent evidence of a causal link betwe...

Covert visual search within and beyond the effective oculomotor range

Covert spatial attention is tightly coupled to the eye-movement system, but the precise nature of this coupling remains contentious. Recent research has argued that covert attention and overt eye-movements many share a common biological limit, such that covert exogenous orienting of attention is limited to stimuli that fall within the range of possible eye movements (the effective oculomotor ra...