Giving subjects the eye and showing them the finger: socio-biological cues and saccade generation in the anti-saccade task.

摘要

Pointing with the eyes or the finger occurs frequently in social interaction to indicateuddirection of attention and one's intentions. Research with a voluntary saccade task (where saccadeuddirection is instructed by the colour of a fixation point) suggested that gaze cues automaticallyudactivate the oculomotor system, but non-biological cues, like arrows, do not. However, other workudhas failed to support the claim that gaze cues are special. In the current research we introducedudbiological and non-biological cues into the anti-saccade task, using a range of stimulus onsetudasynchronies (SOAs). The anti-saccade task recruits both top ^ down and bottom^ up attentionaludmechanisms, as occurs in naturalistic saccadic behaviour. In experiment 1 gaze, but not arrows,udfacilitated saccadic reaction times (SRTs) in the opposite direction to the cues over all SOAs,udwhereas in experiment 2 directional word cues had no effect on saccades. In experiment 3 fingerudpointing cues caused reduced SRTs in the opposite direction to the cues at short SOAs. Theseudfindings suggest that biological cues automatically recruit the oculomotor system whereas non-udbiological cues do not. Furthermore, the anti-saccade task set appears to facilitate saccadic responses in the opposite direction to the cues.