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Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation

It is known that attention shifts prior to a saccade to start processing the saccade target before it lands in the foveola, the high-resolution region of the retina. Yet, once the target is foveated, microsaccades, tiny saccades maintaining the fixated object within the fovea, continue to occur. Wha...

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Autores principales: Shelchkova, Natalya, Poletti, Martina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7245104/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32358186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1919832117
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author Shelchkova, Natalya
Poletti, Martina
author_facet Shelchkova, Natalya
Poletti, Martina
author_sort Shelchkova, Natalya
collection PubMed
description It is known that attention shifts prior to a saccade to start processing the saccade target before it lands in the foveola, the high-resolution region of the retina. Yet, once the target is foveated, microsaccades, tiny saccades maintaining the fixated object within the fovea, continue to occur. What is the link between these eye movements and attention? There is growing evidence that these eye movements are associated with covert shifts of attention in the visual periphery, when the attended stimuli are presented far from the center of gaze. Yet, microsaccades are primarily used to explore complex foveal stimuli and to optimize fine spatial vision in the foveola, suggesting that the influences of microsaccades on attention may predominantly impact vision at this scale. To address this question we tracked gaze position with high precision and briefly presented high-acuity stimuli at predefined foveal locations right before microsaccade execution. Our results show that visual discrimination changes prior to microsaccade onset. An enhancement occurs at the microsaccade target location. This modulation is highly selective and it is coupled with a drastic impairment at the opposite foveal location, just a few arcminutes away. This effect is strongest when stimuli are presented closer to the eye movement onset time. These findings reveal that the link between attention and microsaccades is deeper than previously thought, exerting its strongest effects within the foveola. As a result, during fixation, foveal vision is constantly being reshaped both in space and in time with the occurrence of microsaccades.
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spelling pubmed-72451042020-06-04 Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation Shelchkova, Natalya Poletti, Martina Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences It is known that attention shifts prior to a saccade to start processing the saccade target before it lands in the foveola, the high-resolution region of the retina. Yet, once the target is foveated, microsaccades, tiny saccades maintaining the fixated object within the fovea, continue to occur. What is the link between these eye movements and attention? There is growing evidence that these eye movements are associated with covert shifts of attention in the visual periphery, when the attended stimuli are presented far from the center of gaze. Yet, microsaccades are primarily used to explore complex foveal stimuli and to optimize fine spatial vision in the foveola, suggesting that the influences of microsaccades on attention may predominantly impact vision at this scale. To address this question we tracked gaze position with high precision and briefly presented high-acuity stimuli at predefined foveal locations right before microsaccade execution. Our results show that visual discrimination changes prior to microsaccade onset. An enhancement occurs at the microsaccade target location. This modulation is highly selective and it is coupled with a drastic impairment at the opposite foveal location, just a few arcminutes away. This effect is strongest when stimuli are presented closer to the eye movement onset time. These findings reveal that the link between attention and microsaccades is deeper than previously thought, exerting its strongest effects within the foveola. As a result, during fixation, foveal vision is constantly being reshaped both in space and in time with the occurrence of microsaccades. National Academy of Sciences 2020-05-19 2020-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7245104/ /pubmed/32358186 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1919832117 Text en Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Shelchkova, Natalya
Poletti, Martina
Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
title Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
title_full Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
title_fullStr Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
title_full_unstemmed Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
title_short Modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
title_sort modulations of foveal vision associated with microsaccade preparation
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7245104/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32358186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1919832117
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