Influence of attentional capture on oculomotor control.
DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.25.6.1595
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Summary
This study investigates whether task-irrelevant abrupt visual onsets capture oculomotor control, extending previous research that established such onsets involuntarily capture spatial attention. The authors address the extent to which visual selection is governed by top-down goals versus bottom-up stimulus properties, specifically examining if an abrupt onset can disrupt the planning and execution of a voluntary saccade toward a target. In Experiment 1, eight participants performed a visual search task requiring them to identify a small letter inside a unique gray circle (color singleton) among red distractors. Because the letter was small, participants had to make a saccade to the target to identify it. The experimental condition introduced a task-irrelevant abrupt onset (an additional red circle) at varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs: 0, 80, or 150 ms) and angular distances from the target (30°, 90°, or 150°). A control condition included the additional circle without an abrupt onset. Eye movements were recorded using an infrared video-based tracker. The results demonstrated that abrupt onsets significantly disrupted oculomotor control. Manual reaction times (RTs) were slower in the presence of an onset, with the distraction effect diminishing as the SOA increased. Crucially, eye-tracking data revealed that in many trials, particularly at the 0-ms SOA, the eyes initially moved toward the irrelevant onset rather than the target. This occurred even when the onset was located 150° away from the target. Saccades directed toward the onset had shorter latencies (213 ms) than those directed toward the target (237 ms). Furthermore, fixation durations following saccades toward the onset were extremely brief (mostly under 150 ms), insufficient for programming a new voluntary saccade. This suggests that the eye movement toward the target was programmed in parallel with the reflexive movement toward the onset. Even on trials where the eyes went directly to the target, manual RTs remained slower than in the control condition, indicating that the onset disrupted processing even when it did not divert the gaze. The findings indicate that top-down control cannot entirely prevent attentional capture by abrupt onsets, nor can it prevent the initiation of reflexive eye movements toward those onsets. The authors propose a model of parallel programming, where a voluntary, goal-directed saccade and a stimulus-driven, reflexive saccade are initiated simultaneously. This supports the view that the oculomotor system is tightly coupled with attentional mechanisms and is susceptible to involuntary, bottom-up capture, highlighting the limitations of voluntary control over eye movements in dynamic visual environments.
Key finding
Top-down attentional set for a color singleton does not prevent the oculomotor system from initiating a saccade toward an irrelevant abrupt onset; the eyes are captured stimulus-driven before being corrected to the goal-relevant target, consistent with parallel saccade programming.
Methodology
lab_experiment
Sample size: 8 adults (ages 18-28), Experiment 1; additional participants in Experiment 2
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-08 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-03 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
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| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 17 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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