A fresh look at saccadic trajectories and task irrelevant stimuli: Social relevance matters.
A distractor placed nearby a saccade target will cause interference during saccade planning and execution, and as a result will cause the saccade's trajectory to curve in a systematic way. It has been demonstrated that making a distractor more task-relevant, for example by increasing its similarity to the target, will increase the interference it imposes on the saccade and generate more deviant saccadic trajectories. Is the extent of a distractor's interference within the oculomotor system limited to its relevance to a particular current task, or can a distractor's general real-world meaning influence saccade trajectories even when it is made irrelevant within a task? Here, it is tested whether a task-irrelevant distractor can influence saccade trajectory if it depicts a stimulus that is normally socially relevant. Participants made saccades to a target object while also presented with a task-irrelevant (upright or inverted) face, or scrambled non-face equivalent. Results reveal that a distracting face creates greater deviation in saccade trajectory than does a non-face distractor, most notably at longer saccadic reaction times. These results demonstrate the sensitivity of processing that distractors are afforded by the oculomotor system, and support the view that distractor relevance beyond the task itself can also influence saccade planning and execution.
['Laidlaw|Kaitlin E W|KE|', 'Badiudeen|Thariq A|TA|', 'Zhu|Mona J H|MJ|', 'Kingstone|Alan|A|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000704:Analysis of Variance D000066499:Facial Recognition D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D010470:Perceptual Masking D010775:Photic Stimulation D011930:Reaction Time D012438:Saccades D013477:Superior Colliculi D055815:Young Adult
Saccade trajectory Distractor relevance Eye movements Face processing Inhibition Superior colliculus