The role of stimulus-driven and goal-driven control in saccadic visual selection.
Four experiments were conducted to investigate the role of stimulus-driven control in saccadic eye movements. Participants were required to make a speeded saccade toward a predefined target presented concurrently with multiple nontargets and possibly 1 distractor. Target and distractor were either equally salient (Experiments 1 and 2) or not (Experiments 3 and 4). The results uniformly demonstrated that fast eye movements were completely stimulus driven, whereas slower eye movements were goal driven. These results are in line with neither a bottom-up account nor a top-down notion of visual selection. Instead, they indicate that visual selection is the outcome of 2 independent processes, one stimulus driven and the other goal driven, operating in different time windows.
van Zoest
Wieske
W
Department of Cognitive Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. w.van.zoest@psy.vu.nl
Donk
Mieke
M
Theeuwes
Jan
J
D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology