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Nikolaev AR, Meghanathan RN, van Leeuwen C. Refixation behavior in naturalistic viewing: Methods, mechanisms, and neural correlates. Atten Percept Psychophys 2024:10.3758/s13414-023-02836-9. [PMID: 38169029 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02836-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/17/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
When freely viewing a scene, the eyes often return to previously visited locations. By tracking eye movements and coregistering eye movements and EEG, such refixations are shown to have multiple roles: repairing insufficient encoding from precursor fixations, supporting ongoing viewing by resampling relevant locations prioritized by precursor fixations, and aiding the construction of memory representations. All these functions of refixation behavior are understood to be underpinned by three oculomotor and cognitive systems and their associated brain structures. First, immediate saccade planning prior to refixations involves attentional selection of candidate locations to revisit. This process is likely supported by the dorsal attentional network. Second, visual working memory, involved in maintaining task-related information, is likely supported by the visual cortex. Third, higher-order relevance of scene locations, which depends on general knowledge and understanding of scene meaning, is likely supported by the hippocampal memory system. Working together, these structures bring about viewing behavior that balances exploring previously unvisited areas of a scene with exploiting visited areas through refixations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrey R Nikolaev
- Department of Psychology, Lund University, Box 213, 22100, Lund, Sweden.
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
| | | | - Cees van Leeuwen
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- Center for Cognitive Science, Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Probing the Neural Mechanisms for Distractor Filtering and Their History-Contingent Modulation by Means of TMS. J Neurosci 2019; 39:7591-7603. [PMID: 31387915 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2740-18.2019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2018] [Revised: 07/19/2019] [Accepted: 07/22/2019] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
In visual search, the presence of a salient, yet task-irrelevant, distractor in the stimulus array interferes with target selection and slows down performance. Neuroimaging data point to a key role of the frontoparietal dorsal attention network in dealing with visual distractors; however, the respective roles of different nodes within the network and their hemispheric specialization are still unresolved. Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to evaluate the causal role of two key regions of the dorsal attention network in resisting attentional capture by a salient singleton distractor: the frontal eye field (FEF) and the cortex within the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). The task of the participants (male/female human volunteers) was to discriminate the pointing direction of a target arrow while ignoring a task-irrelevant salient distractor. Immediately after stimulus onset, triple-pulse 10 Hz TMS was delivered either to IPS or FEF on either side of the brain. Results indicated that TMS over the right FEF significantly reduced the behavioral cost engendered by the salient distractor relative to left FEF stimulation. No such effect was obtained with stimulation of IPS on either side of brain. Interestingly, this FEF-dependent reduction in distractor interference interacted with the contingent trial history, being maximal when no distractor was present on the previous trial relative to when there was one. Our results provide direct causal evidence that the right FEF houses key mechanisms for distractor filtering, pointing to a pivotal role of the frontal cortex of the right hemisphere in limiting interference from an irrelevant but attention-grabbing stimulus.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Visually conspicuous stimuli attract our attention automatically and interfere with performance by diverting resources away from the main task. Here, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation over four frontoparietal cortex locations (frontal eye field and intraparietal sulcus in each hemisphere) to identify regions of the dorsal attention network that help limit interference from task-irrelevant, salient distractors. Results indicate that the right FEF participates in distractor-filtering mechanisms that are recruited when a distracting stimulus is encountered. Moreover, right FEF implements adjustments in distraction-filtering mechanisms following recent encounters with distractors. Together, these findings indicate a different hemispheric contribution of the left versus right dorsal frontal cortex to distraction filtering. This study expands our understanding of how our brains select relevant targets in the face of task-irrelevant, salient distractors.
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Nikolaev AR, Meghanathan RN, van Leeuwen C. Refixation control in free viewing: a specialized mechanism divulged by eye-movement-related brain activity. J Neurophysiol 2018; 120:2311-2324. [PMID: 30110230 PMCID: PMC6295528 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00121.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2018] [Revised: 06/28/2018] [Accepted: 08/10/2018] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
In free viewing, the eyes return to previously visited locations rather frequently, even though the attentional and memory-related processes controlling eye-movement show a strong antirefixation bias. To overcome this bias, a special refixation triggering mechanism may have to be recruited. We probed the neural evidence for such a mechanism by combining eye tracking with EEG recording. A distinctive signal associated with refixation planning was observed in the EEG during the presaccadic interval: the presaccadic potential was reduced in amplitude before a refixation compared with normal fixations. The result offers direct evidence for a special refixation mechanism that operates in the saccade planning stage of eye movement control. Once the eyes have landed on the revisited location, acquisition of visual information proceeds indistinguishably from ordinary fixations. NEW & NOTEWORTHY A substantial proportion of eye fixations in human natural viewing behavior are revisits of recently visited locations, i.e., refixations. Our recently developed methods enabled us to study refixations in a free viewing visual search task, using combined eye movement and EEG recording. We identified in the EEG a distinctive refixation-related signal, signifying a control mechanism specific to refixations as opposed to ordinary eye fixations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrey R Nikolaev
- Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Brain and Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven - University of Leuven , Leuven , Belgium
| | - Radha Nila Meghanathan
- Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Brain and Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven - University of Leuven , Leuven , Belgium
| | - Cees van Leeuwen
- Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Brain and Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven - University of Leuven , Leuven , Belgium
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Van Humbeeck N, Meghanathan RN, Wagemans J, van Leeuwen C, Nikolaev AR. Presaccadic EEG activity predicts visual saliency in free-viewing contour integration. Psychophysiology 2018; 55:e13267. [PMID: 30069911 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13267] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2016] [Revised: 04/26/2018] [Accepted: 06/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
While viewing a scene, the eyes are attracted to salient stimuli. We set out to identify the brain signals controlling this process. In a contour integration task, in which participants searched for a collinear contour in a field of randomly oriented Gabor elements, a previously established model was applied to calculate a visual saliency value for each fixation location. We studied brain activity related to the modeled saliency values, using coregistered eye tracking and EEG. To disentangle EEG signals reflecting salience in free viewing from overlapping EEG responses to sequential eye movements, we adopted generalized additive mixed modeling (GAMM) to single epochs of saccade-related EEG. We found that, when saliency at the next fixation location was high, amplitude of the presaccadic EEG activity was low. Since presaccadic activity reflects covert attention to the saccade target, our results indicate that larger attentional effort is needed for selecting less salient saccade targets than more salient ones. This effect was prominent in contour-present conditions (half of the trials), but ambiguous in the contour-absent condition. Presaccadic EEG activity may thus be indicative of bottom-up factors in saccade guidance. The results underscore the utility of GAMM for EEG-eye movement coregistration research.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Johan Wagemans
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Cees van Leeuwen
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Andrey R Nikolaev
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
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Faces are special, but facial expressions aren’t: Insights from an oculomotor capture paradigm. Atten Percept Psychophys 2017; 79:1438-1452. [DOI: 10.3758/s13414-017-1313-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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Heimler B, van Zoest W, Baruffaldi F, Donk M, Rinaldi P, Caselli MC, Pavani F. Finding the balance between capture and control: Oculomotor selection in early deaf adults. Brain Cogn 2015; 96:12-27. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2015.03.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2014] [Revised: 03/01/2015] [Accepted: 03/07/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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Task relevance effects in electrophysiological brain activity: Early, but not first. Neuroimage 2014; 101:68-75. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2014] [Revised: 06/11/2014] [Accepted: 06/26/2014] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
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Neural correlates of visuospatial consciousness in 3D default space: Insights from contralateral neglect syndrome. Conscious Cogn 2014; 28:81-93. [DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2014.06.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2014] [Revised: 06/21/2014] [Accepted: 06/25/2014] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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Peltsch A, Hemraj A, Garcia A, Munoz DP. Saccade deficits in amnestic mild cognitive impairment resemble mild Alzheimer's disease. Eur J Neurosci 2014; 39:2000-13. [DOI: 10.1111/ejn.12617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2014] [Revised: 03/25/2014] [Accepted: 04/11/2014] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Alicia Peltsch
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies; Queen's University; Kingston ON K7L 3N6 Canada
| | - Alisha Hemraj
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies; Queen's University; Kingston ON K7L 3N6 Canada
| | - Angeles Garcia
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies; Queen's University; Kingston ON K7L 3N6 Canada
- Department of Medicine; Queen's University; Kingston ON Canada
| | - Douglas P. Munoz
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies; Queen's University; Kingston ON K7L 3N6 Canada
- Department of Medicine; Queen's University; Kingston ON Canada
- Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences; Queen's University; Kingston ON Canada
- Department of Psychology; Queen's University; Kingston ON Canada
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Ptak R, Müri RM. The parietal cortex and saccade planning: lessons from human lesion studies. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 7:254. [PMID: 23759723 PMCID: PMC3675316 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00254] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2013] [Accepted: 05/21/2013] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The parietal cortex is a critical interface for attention and integration of multiple sensory signals that can be used for the implementation of motor plans. Many neurons in this region exhibit strong attention-, reach-, grasp- or saccade-related activity. Here, we review human lesion studies supporting the critical role of the parietal cortex in saccade planning. Studies of patients with unilateral parietal damage and spatial neglect reveal characteristic spatially lateralized deficits of saccade programming when multiple stimuli compete for attention. However, these patients also show bilateral impairments of saccade initiation and control that are difficult to explain in the context of their lateralized deficits of visual attention. These findings are reminiscent of the deficits of oculomotor control observed in patients with Bálint's syndrome consecutive to bilateral parietal damage. We propose that some oculomotor deficits following parietal damage are compatible with a decisive role of the parietal cortex in saccade planning under conditions of sensory competition, while other deficits reflect disinhibition of low-level structures of the oculomotor network in the absence of top-down parietal modulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Radek Ptak
- Division of Neurorehabilitation, University Hospitals GenevaGeneva, Switzerland
- Laboratory of Cognitive Neurorehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine, University of GenevaGeneva, Switzerland
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of GenevaGeneva, Switzerland
| | - René M. Müri
- Division of Cognitive and Restorative Neurology, Department of Neurology, University HospitalInselspital, Bern, Switzerland
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Morand SM, Harvey M, Grosbras MH. Parieto-Occipital Cortex Shows Early Target Selection to Faces in a Reflexive Orienting Task. Cereb Cortex 2012. [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhs368] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Yerram S, Glazman S, Bodis-Wollner I. Cortical control of saccades in Parkinson disease and essential tremor. J Neural Transm (Vienna) 2012; 120:145-56. [PMID: 22926662 DOI: 10.1007/s00702-012-0870-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2012] [Accepted: 07/20/2012] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
A number of studies suggest that some features of essential tremor (ET) and Parkinson disease (PD) overlap. Besides tremor, also some cognitive features have been implicated in ET and PD. There is recent evidence that a common genetic mutation occurs in ET and PD. Saccadic eye movements could provide an easily quantifiable procedure to help in the differential diagnosis in early PD and ET. Being able to distinguish early on the two diseases may help in tailoring therapy. Cortical control of saccades and antisaccades as they pertain to the potential discrimination of PD and ET is reviewed. Imaging and electrophysiological studies are highlighted; however, there are still few studies. Hopefully this review will stimulate further research, in particular in the direction of differences and similarities in the neural circuits involved in PD and ET.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Yerram
- Department of Neurology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, USA
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Shomstein S, Kravitz DJ, Behrmann M. Attentional control: temporal relationships within the fronto-parietal network. Neuropsychologia 2012; 50:1202-10. [PMID: 22386880 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.02.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2011] [Revised: 02/08/2012] [Accepted: 02/15/2012] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Selective attention to particular aspects of incoming sensory information is enabled by a network of neural areas that includes frontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and, in the visual domain, visual sensory regions. Although progress has been made in understanding the relative contribution of these different regions to the process of visual attentional selection, primarily through studies using neuroimaging, rather little is known about the temporal relationships between these disparate regions. To examine this, participants viewed two rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams of letters positioned to the left and right of fixation point. Before each run, attention was directed to either the left or the right stream. Occasionally, a digit appeared within the attended stream indicating whether attention was to be maintained within the same stream ('hold' condition) or to be shifted to the previously ignored stream ('shift' condition). By titrating the temporal parameters of the time taken to shift attention for each participant using a fine-grained psychophysics paradigm, we measured event-related potentials time-locked to the initiation of spatial shifts of attention. The results revealed that shifts of attention were evident earlier in the response recorded over frontal than over parietal electrodes and, importantly, that the early activity over frontal electrodes was associated with a successful shift of attention. We conclude that frontal areas are engaged early for the purpose of executing an attentional shift, likely triggering a cascade through the fronto-parietal network ultimately, resulting in the attentional modulation of sensory events in posterior cortices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Shomstein
- Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20015, United States.
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Ptak R. The frontoparietal attention network of the human brain: action, saliency, and a priority map of the environment. Neuroscientist 2011; 18:502-15. [PMID: 21636849 DOI: 10.1177/1073858411409051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 376] [Impact Index Per Article: 28.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The dorsal convexity of the human frontal and parietal lobes forms a network that is crucially involved in the selection of sensory contents by attention. This network comprehends cortex along the intraparietal sulcus, the inferior parietal lobe, and dorsal premotor cortex, including the frontal eye field. These regions are richly interconnected with recurrent fibers passing through the superior longitudinal fasciculus. The posterior parietal cortex has several functional characteristics-such as feature-independent coding, enhancement of activity by attention, representation of task-related signals, and access to multiple reference frames-that point to a central role of this region in the computation of a feature- and modality-independent priority map of the environment. The priority map integrates feature information elaborated in sensory cortex and top-down representations of behavioral goals and expectations originating in the dorsolateral prefrontal and premotor cortex. This review presents converging evidence from single-unit studies of the primate brain, functional neuroimaging, and investigations of neuropsychological disorders such as Bálint syndrome and spatial neglect for a decisive role of the frontoparietal attention network in the selection of relevant environmental information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Radek Ptak
- Division of Neurorehabilitation, Geneva University Hospital, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
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The dorsal attention network mediates orienting toward behaviorally relevant stimuli in spatial neglect. J Neurosci 2010; 30:12557-65. [PMID: 20861361 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2722-10.2010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 94] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Experimental neurophysiology and functional neuroimaging have identified a dorsal attention network that encodes neural signals related to the behavioral significance of a stimulus. The core anatomical areas of this network are the frontal eye fields and the posterior parietal cortex, which are interconnected by the superior longitudinal fasciculus. Here, we show that damage or disconnection of this network predicts the extent to which task-relevant stimuli capture attention of human stroke patients with spatial neglect. Healthy volunteers, right-hemisphere-damaged control participants, and patients with left neglect reacted to peripheral targets defined by their color, which were preceded by a brief distracter stimulus. The position of the distracter and its relevance for the current trial were independently varied. In neglect patients with damage including the frontal eye fields and the superior longitudinal fasciculus, ipsilesional distracters impaired orienting into contralesional space regardless of their relevance for the current task. In contrast, patients with sparing of these regions were only impaired when distracters were task-relevant. These findings indicate that the dorsal attention network controls spatial orienting by modulating the saliency of distracter stimuli according to current action goals.
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