The omnipresent prolongation of visual fixations: saccades are inhibited by changes in situation and in subject's activity.
Presenting a distractor prolongs not only saccadic reaction times in paced tasks but also fixation durations in unpaced tasks. To investigate whether the effect of a distractor is a pure optomotor reflex, we used both visual and auditory distractors in an unpaced picture-viewing paradigm. Results show a distractor effect for both modalities. Analysis of data from previous studies showed similar effects, even in amodal shifts of attention. These findings challenge the hypothesis that the effect is modality-specific and suggest that the distractor effect may be another expression of the orienting reflex.
Pannasch
S
S
Department of Psychology, Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany. pannasch@psyl.psych.tu-dresden.de
Dornhoefer
S M
SM
Unema
P J
PJ
Velichkovsky
B M
BM
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors