Institut für Psychologie: Kolloquium

Am Dienstag, den 28. November 2023, 17:15 Uhr findet in der OVGU, im Gebäude G22A-R362 und das nächste Institutskolloquium statt, zu dem wir Sie herzlich einladen.

Frau Dr. Nina Hanning wird einen Vortrag über "To look or not to look: How we attend with and without moving our eyes" halten.

Abstract: Attention is a central neural process that enables selective and efficient processing of visual information. Whereas individuals can attend covertly to relevant locations, without moving their eyes, we typically shift our attention overtly by making saccadic eye movements to targets of interest.

Interestingly, visual sensitivity at the saccade target is already enhanced before the eyes start moving. This “presaccadic shift of attention" is presumed to originate from oculomotor programming and to automatically precede every saccadic eye movement. Since the behavioral and neural correlates of presaccadic attention are similar to those of covert attention (both enhance sensitivity), this has led to the notion that the two processes are functionally equivalent and rely on the same neural circuitry.

I will discuss evidence from a series of psychophysics / TMS experiments which challenge these prevalent views. I will show that oculomotor programming and presaccadic perceptual sensitivity can be decoupled and that the presumed mandatory presaccadic shift of attention (as well as the integration of information across saccades) depends on eye movement direction. Lastly, I will present a neural dissociation of brain regions relevant for covert and presaccadic attentional orienting.