Figures and data
Attention was successfully shifted and maintained.
(A) Schematic showing the progression of a single example trial. A colour change of the central fixation dot cued which of two visual stimuli was most likely to change orientation (the visual target). After a variable delay, the target event (the orientation change) occurred in either the cued (80% of trials, valid) or other (20%, invalid) stimulus and participants reported whether it was clockwise or anticlockwise. Colours shown serve only as an example, for the experimental colours, see the methods section. Supplementary Figure S2 shows the stimulus screen and stimulus sizes and distances to scale. (B) Behavioural performance (reaction times above, accuracy scores below) as function of cue-target interval for validly vs. invalidly cued targets. Circular markers indicate mean values, with shaded areas indicating the standard error of the mean. Bars reflect the mean behavioural performance, with whiskers indicating the standard error of the mean. Grey lines indicate individual participants’ data.
Attention was accompanied by a bias in microsaccade direction.
(A) Time courses of saccade rates for saccades towards the cued and the other item. This analysis only includes downward saccades, as stimuli were positioned at a 45° angle below fixation, allowing us to distinguish saccades towards the item from those returning to central fixation. The time courses indicate mean values, with shaded areas indicating the standard error of the mean. (B) Time courses of the attentional modulation of saccade direction (toward cued – toward other). The time courses indicate mean values, with shaded areas indicating the standard error of the mean. Black horizontal lines indicate significant temporal clusters (as determined by a cluster-based permutation test). (C) Time courses of attentional modulation (as shown in B) as a function of saccade size. For reference, dashed horizontal lines indicate 1 degree visual angle, as well as the original locations of the centre and closest border of the visual stimulus.
Microsaccade directions are biased predominantly during attentional shifting.
Bars represent the mean saccade towardness rate in the denoted timeframes, with whiskers indicating the standard error of the mean. Distribution and scatter plots show individual participants’ data, with dark lines indicating the mean. Note that the y-axes have different scales between Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 and between bar graphs and distribution plots, for visualisation purposes.
Cue-validity effects at each of the tested cue-target intervals.
This table splits the cue-validity effects from Figure 1 into the ten possible cue-target intervals. The top half of the table shows the effects of cue-validity on reaction time; the bottom half of the table shows the effects of cue-validity on accuracy. Results from Experiment 1 and 2 are shown, respectively, on the left and right sides of the table. The table shows both uncorrected and Bonferroni corrected p-values, along with their significance levels: *: p< 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001.
Attention was successfully shifted and maintained throughout entire trial period.
Full time courses of saccade data. This figure replicates the results shown in Figure 2 using the complementary analysis described in the Methods section. (A) Time courses of saccade rates for saccades towards the cued and the other item. This analysis only includes downward saccades, as stimuli were positioned at a 45° angle below fixation, allowing us to distinguish saccades toward the item from those returning to central fixation. The time courses indicate mean values, with shaded areas indicating the standard error of the mean. (B) Time courses of the attentional modulation of saccade direction (toward cued – toward other). The time courses indicate mean values, with shaded areas indicating the standard error of the mean. Black horizontal lines indicate significant temporal clusters (as determined by a cluster-based permutation test). (C) Time courses of attentional modulation (as shown in B) as a function of saccade size. For reference, dashed horizontal lines indicate 1 degree visual angle, as well as the original locations of the centre and closest border of the visual stimulus.
