Covert tracking: a combined ERP and fixational eye movement study

Attention can be directed to particular spatial locations, or to objects that appear at anticipated points in time. While most work has focused on spatial or temporal attention in isolation, we investigated covert tracking of smoothly moving objects, which requires continuous coordination of both. W...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-06, Vol.7 (6), p.e38479-e38479
Main Authors: Makin, Alexis D J, Poliakoff, Ellen, Ackerley, Rochelle, El-Deredy, Wael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
1980
attention
Biology
brain
Clinical Medicine
Cognitive ability
Covert operations
Electroencephalography
Enterprise resource planning
Event-related potentials
Evoked Potentials
Eye
Eye Movements
fmri
Hemispheres
Hemispheric laterality
Humans
Klinisk medicin
Medical imaging
Memory
motion extrapolation
moving targets
Oculomotor system
quarterly journal of experimental psychology
Researchers
Saccades (Eye movements)
selective attention
smooth-pursuit
sner mi
Social and Behavioral Sciences
spatial
Studies
target blanking
time
Tracking
v32
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Summary:Attention can be directed to particular spatial locations, or to objects that appear at anticipated points in time. While most work has focused on spatial or temporal attention in isolation, we investigated covert tracking of smoothly moving objects, which requires continuous coordination of both. We tested two propositions about the neural and cognitive basis of this operation: first that covert tracking is a right hemisphere function, and second that pre-motor components of the oculomotor system are responsible for driving covert spatial attention during tracking. We simultaneously recorded event related potentials (ERPs) and eye position while participants covertly tracked dots that moved leftward or rightward at 12 or 20°/s. ERPs were sensitive to the direction of target motion. Topographic development in the leftward motion was a mirror image of the rightward motion, suggesting that both hemispheres contribute equally to covert tracking. Small shifts in eye position were also lateralized according to the direction of target motion, implying covert activation of the oculomotor system. The data addresses two outstanding questions about the nature of visuospatial tracking. First, covert tracking is reliant upon a symmetrical frontoparietal attentional system, rather than being right lateralized. Second, this same system controls both pursuit eye movements and covert tracking.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0038479