No-onset looming motion guides spatial attention.

von Mühlenen, Adrian; Lleras, Alejandro · 2007 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.33.6.1297

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Summary

This study investigates whether oculomotor capture (eye movements misdirected toward sudden onsets) and attentional capture (slowed manual responses due to onsets) share a common underlying mechanism or reflect distinct processes. Previous research suggested a dissociation: eye movements are captured by abrupt onsets, while manual responses show slowed reaction times but not systematic directional errors. The authors hypothesize that this apparent difference arises because eye movements and manual responses are executed at different times, accessing visual information at different stages of processing. To test this, they compared oculomotor capture with manual localization responses using a joystick, ensuring both response types required directional localization rather than simple detection. In Experiment 1, participants performed visual search tasks with either eye movements or joystick responses to locate a color singleton target, sometimes accompanied by an irrelevant sudden-onset distractor. Results replicated previous findings: eye movements showed significant capture (13.7% of trials directed to the onset) with no effect on reaction time, whereas joystick responses showed significant slowing (52ms delay) but minimal capture (2.7% directed to the onset). Experiment 2 introduced reaction time feedback to encourage faster responses. While eye movement capture increased significantly (32.6%), joystick capture remained statistically indistinguishable from general error, despite faster overall reaction times. To resolve this dissociation, the authors analyzed the relationship between reaction time and capture accuracy across both experiments. They divided trials into quartiles based on reaction time and found that for eye movements, capture rates decreased significantly as reaction time increased. Crucially, they observed that the reaction time distributions for eye movements and joystick responses did not overlap; joystick responses were consistently slower. The authors argue that both response systems follow the same speed-accuracy trade-off function, where capture is more likely when responses are executed quickly before attention shifts to the target. Because joystick responses are inherently slower, they occur at a point in time where attention has already disengaged from the onset, resulting in low capture rates. The study concludes that oculomotor capture is a specific instance of a more general attentional capture effect. The apparent differences between eye and manual responses are not due to distinct underlying mechanisms but rather to the timing of response execution. Both systems access visual information that changes over time; fast responses (eye movements) access early, onset-dominated information, while slower responses (manual localization) access later, target-dominated information. This finding reconciles conflicting literature by demonstrating that attentional and oculomotor capture reflect the same process, modulated by the speed-accuracy trade-off inherent in different motor systems.

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Topics

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• time to collision looming
• peripheral attention