Bilateral interactions in saccade programming. A saccade-latency study.

Subjects were required to make a saccade to a target appearing randomly 4 degree to the left or right of the current fixation position (1280 trials per experiment). Location cues were used to direct visual attention and start saccade preparation to one of the two locations before target onset. When the cue indicated the target location (valid trials), the generation of express saccades (visually guided saccades with latencies around 100 ms) was strongly facilitated. When the opposite location was cued (invalid trials), express saccades were abolished and replaced by a population of mainly fast-regular saccades (latencies around 150 ms). This was found with a peripheral cue independently of whether the fixation point was removed before target onset (gap condition; experiment 1) or remained on throughout the trial (overlap condition; experiment 2). The same pattern also was observed with a central cue that did not involve any visual stimulation at a peripheral location (experiment 3). In the case where the primary saccade was executed in response to the cue and the target appeared at the opposite location, continuous amplitude transition functions were observed: starting at about 60-70 ms from target onset onward, the amplitude of the cue-elicited saccades continuously decreased from 4 degree to values below 1 degree. The results are explained by a fixation-gating model, according to which the antagonism between fixation and saccade activity gives rise to multimodal distributions of saccade latencies. It is argued that allocation of visual attention and saccade preparation to one location entails a successive disengagement of the fixation system controlling saccade preparation within the hemifield to which the saccade is prepared and a partial engagement of the opposite fixation system.