title: The asymmetrical influence of increasing time-on-task on attentional disengagement.
abstract: Increasing time-on-task leads to fatigue and, as shown by previous research, differentially affects the deployment of visual attention towards the left and the right visual space. In healthy participants, an increasing rightward bias is commonly observed with increasing time-on-task. Yet, it is unclear whether specific mechanisms involved in the spatial deployment of visual attention are differentially affected by increasing time-on-task. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether prolonged time-on-task would affect a specific mechanism of visuospatial attentional deployment, namely attentional disengagement, in an asymmetrical fashion. For this purpose, we administered to healthy participants a prolonged gap/overlap saccadic paradigm, with left- and right-sided target stimuli. This oculomotor paradigm allowed to quantify disengagement costs according to the direction of the subsequent attentional shifts, and to evaluate the temporal development of disengagement costs with increasing time-on-task. Our results show that, with increasing time-on-task, participants demonstrated significantly lower disengagement costs for rightward compared to leftward saccades. These effects were specific, since concurring side differences of saccadic latencies were found for overlap trials (requiring attentional disengagement), but not for gap trials (requiring no or less attentional disengagement). Moreover, the results were paralleled by a non-lateralised decrease in saccadic peak velocity with increasing time-on-task, a common finding indicating an increasing level of fatigue. Our findings support the idea that non-spatial attentional aspects, such as fatigue due to increasing time-on-task, can have a substantial influence on the spatial deployment of visual attention, in particular on its disengagement, depending on the direction of the subsequent attentional shift.
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Rebecca E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Paladini
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Diana
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Center of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation, Luzerner Kantonsspital, Lucerne, Switzerland; Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, University Hospital Inselspital, University of Bern , Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nyffeler
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Urs P
authors.initials: UP
authors.lastname: Mosimann
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nef
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, University Hospital Inselspital, University of Bern , Bern, Switzerland; Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: René M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Müri
authors.affiliation: Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. Electronic address: dario.cazzoli@artorg.unibe.ch.
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cazzoli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005222:Mental Fatigue / Q000503:physiopathology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012438:Saccades; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Eye movements; Fatigue; Non-spatial attention; Spatial attention