Visually guided saccades and acoustic distractors: no evidence for the remote distractor effect or global effect
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Visually guided saccades and acoustic distractors: no evidence for the remote distractor effect or global effect Benjamin Tari1 · Luc Tremblay2 · Matthew Heath1,3 Received: 15 June 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract A remote visual distractor increases saccade reaction time (RT) to a visual target and may reflect the time required to resolve conflict between target- and distractor-related information within a common retinotopic representation in the superior colliculus (SC) (i.e., the remote distractor effect: RDE). Notably, because the SC serves as a sensorimotor interface it is possible that the RDE may be associated with the pairing of an acoustic distractor with a visual target; that is, the conflict related to saccade generation signals may be sensory-independent. To address that issue, we employed a traditional RDE experiment involving a visual target and visual proximal and remote distractors (Experiment 1) and an experiment wherein a visual target was presented with acoustic proximal and remote distractors (Experiment 2). As well, Experiments 1 and 2 employed no-distractor trials. Experiment 1 RTs elicited a reliable RDE, whereas Experiment 2 RTs for proximal and remote distractors were shorter than their no distractor counterparts. Accordingly, findings demonstrate that the RDE is sensory specific and arises from conflicting visual signals within a common retinotopic map. As well, Experiment 2 findings indicate that an acoustic distractor supports an intersensory facilitation that optimizes oculomotor planning. Keywords Action · Oculomotor · Reaction time · Sensorimotor · Superior colliculus
Introduction When we look in our refrigerator to retrieve a carton of milk, it is necessary to inhibit responses to non-targets (i.e., distractors) such as a carton of eggs or a jar of pickles. In this scenario, the oculomotor system must select a command appropriate for the target while ignoring—or inhibiting— similar commands to the distractor(s). A simple experimental corollary to the refrigerator example involves a visual target concurrently presented with a task-irrelevant visual distractor, and work has shown that the location of the distractor influences oculomotor planning (e.g., Lévy-Schoen Communicated by Melvyn A. Goodale. * Matthew Heath [email protected] 1
School of Kinesiology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
2
Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A1, Canada
3
Canadian Centre for Activity and Aging, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
1969; Walker et al. 1997; DeSimone et al. 2015). For example, Walker et al. (1997) found that a target concurrently presented with a remote distractor (i.e., > 20° in angular coordinates from the target axis) increased saccade reaction time (RT) compared to when a target was presented in a distractor-free environment—a phenomenon referred to as the remote distractor effect (
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