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-thresh...

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Main Authors:	Zénon, Alexandre, Corneil, Brian D., Alamia, Andrea, Filali-Sadouk, Nabil, Olivier, Etienne
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2014
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3900577/

id	pubmed-3900577
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-39005772014-01-24 Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts Zénon, Alexandre Corneil, Brian D. Alamia, Andrea Filali-Sadouk, Nabil Olivier, Etienne Research Article 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 shifts. In order to test this prediction, we designed two experiments in which participants had to orient towards a cued letter, with or without saccades. We analyzed the time course of letter identification score in an “attention” task performed without saccades, using the saccadic latencies measured in the “saccade” task as a marker of covert saccadic preparation. Visual conditions were identical in all tasks. In the “attention” task, we found a drop in perceptual performance around the predicted onset time of saccades that were never performed. Importantly, this decrease in letter identification score cannot be explained by any known mechanism aligned on cue onset such as inhibition of return, masking, or microsaccades. These results show that attentional allocation triggers the same suppression mechanisms as during saccades, which is relevant during eye movements but detrimental in the context of covert orienting. Public Library of Science 2014-01-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3900577/ /pubmed/24466181 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086633 Text en © 2014 Zénon et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Zénon, Alexandre Corneil, Brian D. Alamia, Andrea Filali-Sadouk, Nabil Olivier, Etienne
spellingShingle	Zénon, Alexandre Corneil, Brian D. Alamia, Andrea Filali-Sadouk, Nabil Olivier, Etienne Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts
author_facet	Zénon, Alexandre Corneil, Brian D. Alamia, Andrea Filali-Sadouk, Nabil Olivier, Etienne
author_sort	Zénon, Alexandre
title	Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts
title_short	Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts
title_full	Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts
title_fullStr	Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts
title_full_unstemmed	Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts
title_sort	counterproductive effect of saccadic suppression during attention shifts
description	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 shifts. In order to test this prediction, we designed two experiments in which participants had to orient towards a cued letter, with or without saccades. We analyzed the time course of letter identification score in an “attention” task performed without saccades, using the saccadic latencies measured in the “saccade” task as a marker of covert saccadic preparation. Visual conditions were identical in all tasks. In the “attention” task, we found a drop in perceptual performance around the predicted onset time of saccades that were never performed. Importantly, this decrease in letter identification score cannot be explained by any known mechanism aligned on cue onset such as inhibition of return, masking, or microsaccades. These results show that attentional allocation triggers the same suppression mechanisms as during saccades, which is relevant during eye movements but detrimental in the context of covert orienting.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2014
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3900577/
_version_	1612050743544512512

Counterproductive Effect of Saccadic Suppression during Attention Shifts

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