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Tasty review paper published in Vision

Last summer Soazig and I were approached about writing a review article on oculomotor readiness hypothesis / premotor theory for a special issue of Vision on “Eye Movements and Visual Cognition”. This was a very tempting opportunity, and I must admit I was flattered to be courted by psychology bigwigs like Klein and Liversedge, but I had a couple of reservations. Firstly, this is quite a crowded field, and there had already been some excellent reviews of the literature, including one I had written with Thomas Schenk just a few years ago. Did we really have something new to say? Could we produce something that offered more insight than just describing recent developments in the field? Secondly, writing any paper is time consuming, but with the pressures of the imminent REF there is a distinct disincentive to publishing papers that are not eligible for submission, such as review papers. On the flip side, writing a review seemed like a a great opportunity to articulate the theoretical ideas about attention and eye-movements that we had been bubbling around over the last few years and in the end the decision was easy.

We spent quite some time kicking round ideas for a structure and two key concepts formed the basis of the review. Firstly, that it was absolutely critical to explicitly a differentiate between presaccadic attention, covert endogenous attention and covert exogenous attention. Secondly, that the evidence from neuropsychological studies had been rather neglected in favour of psychophysical or neurophysiological evidence. Once we had these ideas, the review started to fall into place and we were able to develop our key lines of argument, which were (1) presaccadic attention is qualitatively different from covert attention, so studies of presaccadic attention don’t speak to oculomotor readiness / premotor theory per se (2) The neuropsychological evidence for a mandatory coupling between covert exogenous orienting and saccade programming is pretty strong, but the evidence is actually really weak for a causal link between endogenous attention and saccade programming. In the end we felt convinced that the evidence was most convincing for an oculomotor readiness theory of exogenous orienting, (hence the snazzy acronym of OREO) and we hope you will read the paper and be convinced too!

The paper is open access, and you can find it here: https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5150/3/2/17/htm

Casteau, S & Smith, D.T. (2019). Associations and Dissociations between Oculomotor Readiness and Covert Attention. Vision 3: 17.

Writing this review has been an interesting process, as it touches on some conceptual issues that Soazig and I have been struggling with over the last few years. One thing I have never understood is why saccade deviation away from an attended location is often cited as evidence for premotor theory. Everyone says it, but it makes no sense! Surely the saccade should be deviated towards the attended location if it’s associated with a saccade programme? Maybe now someone will explain it to me at our upcoming workshop on attention and motor control (all welcome 😊): http://motorbiasproject.com/workshop

My internship at Durham University: A blogpost by Bianca Biebl from Ludwig Maximilians Universitat

When I embarked on my journey to travel from Munich to Durham for six weeks, I kept wishing that I was already there. That I already knew my accommodation was okay, my colleagues at university friendly and my tasks neither mind-numbing nor overcharging. Upon arrival I soon realized that my accommodation was really nice – even though a bit far from city centre. And regarding my internship, not only did I immediately feel like part of a team with my two supervisors but I also had a great task, which I knew would benefit me greatly for my academic growth. Of course, designing, programming, recruiting, testing and analyzing EyeTracking data was not an easy task. However, with every error message that I managed to resolve by myself and with every additional student I successfully tested, my self-confidence grew and in the end I could actually present a well-working experiment and proper results. This feeling of accomplishment was further encouraged by the supportive feedback by my supervisors and the mutual brainstorming for new ideas to improve every little detail. I also really appreciated the open-mindedness of everyone at university regarding any question I had, which made me feel really welcome. Another aspect of my internship I thoroughly enjoyed was a weekly event, where researchers and PhD students listened to various talks by external scientists while having a glass of wine. Some of my most memorable moments however were surely made during the weekends, where I explored the beautiful surrounding areas like the seaside, Newcastle, York or Edinburgh. The only thing I felt was missing from my time in Durham was contact with other people inside and outside of work. Since I was mostly working on my own, had the office to myself for great periods of time and spent evening and weekends alone, I would have liked to e.g. have more regular meetings or eat lunch together. Altogether however, I had a wonderful time in this beautiful city, learned a great deal and met some truly lovely people.  

Some advice for anyone thinking about a research internship at Durham University 

  • AirBnbs are a great way to stay at Durham – look for ones close to university and city centre 
  • Find a supervisor who is interested in the same topics as you are – there is really something for everyone here 
  • Take care of your network access beforehand  – it takes a few weeks 
  • People at university (colleagues / reception) or in the tourist office in town will help you with any problems – just ask 
  • Use Durham’s amazing location to travel around the north of England – it’s worth it! 

MotorBias Workshop speaker update: Dr Monika Harvey

We’re delighted to announce that Dr Monika Harvey  from University of Glasgow will give a talk at our MotorBias workshop in Durham this July. Monika has a particular interest in disorders of attention such as hemispatial neglect, and has done fascinating research on how the motor system can be used to help patients with neglect. Click HERE to find out a lot more about Monika’s research!

Thoughts on Prof Tim Hodgson’s seminar on Development of Oculomotor Control

I was  delighted to welcome Prof Tim Hodgson from Lincoln University to Durham to give a seminar on his recent work exploring the development of oculomotor control in young children. His talk drew on a series of experiments conducted at the Lincoln Summer Scientist event where Tim and his team examined oculomotor behaviours in children as young as 3! The surprising result (to me at least!) was that very young children seemed to experience a ‘sticky fixation’, such that their gaze remained locked at fixation when a target jumped from fixation to the periphery, or when gaze cues were used to direct saccades. Gaze cues automatically activate saccade programmes in adults (e.g. Kuhn & Kingstone 2009), so the fact that these young children don’t reflexively follow gaze cues suggested to me that perhaps gaze-cueing is a learned, rather than instinctual behaviour (Cole Smith & Atkinson 2015). More provocatively, Tim also argued that even though the children’s eyes were ‘stuck’ at fixation, they were nevertheless able to covertly orient into the periphery. I harrumphed my approval at this little bit of premotor theory bashing but was mindful it was based on the observation that children were able to accurately report the appearance of a peripheral target, even though they failed to execute a saccade towards it. As Bob Kentridge suggested, perhaps there was overactive fixation which prevents the release of a saccade but not the programming of the saccade. All in all it was a fascinating and thought-provoking seminar. We then retired to the Vic for refreshments and further discussion.

Kuhn, G., & Kingstone, A. (2009). Look away! Eyes and arrows engage oculomotor responses automatically. Attention Perception & Psychophysics, 71(2), 314-327. doi:10.3758/app.71.2.314

Cole, G.G., Smith, D.T. & Atkinson, M.A. (2015). Mental state attribution and the gaze cueing effect. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 77(4): 1105-1115.

Dan Smith