Attention Week 9

Eye Tracking and Covert Attention: Key Findings and Relationships

• Different methods for measuring eye movements include scleral search coil, video-based tracking, and electrooculogram (EOG)
• Types of eye tracking metrics include gaze direction and location, pupillary response, fixation duration, saccade onset, amplitude, velocity, and latency, time spent dwelling on something, and sequence of eye movements and fixations
• Saccade latency refers to the time delay between when an eye movement is cued to when the eyes actually move, typically around 200ms on average
• Covert orienting involves the allocation of attention to a region in the periphery without deploying gaze toward it, with two types: endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (involuntary)
• Cueing tasks, such as the Posner's cueing paradigm, involve peripheral and central cues that engage exogenous and endogenous attention, respectively
• In covert attention studies, eye movements are restricted, and participants are asked to keep their eyes at fixation, while typical findings show better target detection and discrimination in the valid compared to the invalid condition
• Endogenous covert attention is slow to deploy (300ms) and persists longer at the cued location, while exogenous covert attention is fast to deploy (100ms) and decays quickly, associated with inhibition of return
• Everyday vision involves both covert and overt shifts in attention, seamlessly determining the visual information we select and process
• Research into the relationship between covert and overt attention includes the premotor theory, neuroimaging, TMS, and neuropsychological evidence
• Premotor theory suggests a mandatory link between saccade preparation and covert spatial attention, while neuroimaging and TMS studies show an overlap in brain regions involved in both attention and motor control
• Neuropsychological evidence and the eye abduction paradigm provide insights into the obligatory link between exogenous attention and eye movements, while saccade trajectories and saccade latencies also offer valuable information about covert and overt attention
• Dual task paradigms and presaccadic attention studies further explore the influence of covert attention on performance at locations away from the saccade goal, contributing to the understanding of the relationship between covert and overt attention

Eye Tracking and Covert Attention: Key Findings and Relationships

• Different methods for measuring eye movements include scleral search coil, video-based tracking, and electrooculogram (EOG)
• Types of eye tracking metrics include gaze direction and location, pupillary response, fixation duration, saccade onset, amplitude, velocity, and latency, time spent dwelling on something, and sequence of eye movements and fixations
• Saccade latency refers to the time delay between when an eye movement is cued to when the eyes actually move, typically around 200ms on average
• Covert orienting involves the allocation of attention to a region in the periphery without deploying gaze toward it, with two types: endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (involuntary)
• Cueing tasks, such as the Posner's cueing paradigm, involve peripheral and central cues that engage exogenous and endogenous attention, respectively
• In covert attention studies, eye movements are restricted, and participants are asked to keep their eyes at fixation, while typical findings show better target detection and discrimination in the valid compared to the invalid condition
• Endogenous covert attention is slow to deploy (300ms) and persists longer at the cued location, while exogenous covert attention is fast to deploy (100ms) and decays quickly, associated with inhibition of return
• Everyday vision involves both covert and overt shifts in attention, seamlessly determining the visual information we select and process
• Research into the relationship between covert and overt attention includes the premotor theory, neuroimaging, TMS, and neuropsychological evidence
• Premotor theory suggests a mandatory link between saccade preparation and covert spatial attention, while neuroimaging and TMS studies show an overlap in brain regions involved in both attention and motor control
• Neuropsychological evidence and the eye abduction paradigm provide insights into the obligatory link between exogenous attention and eye movements, while saccade trajectories and saccade latencies also offer valuable information about covert and overt attention
• Dual task paradigms and presaccadic attention studies further explore the influence of covert attention on performance at locations away from the saccade goal, contributing to the understanding of the relationship between covert and overt attention