Extraocular muscle afferent signals modulate visual attention.



Balslev, Daniela, Newman, William and Knox, Paul C ORCID: 0000-0002-2578-7335
(2012) Extraocular muscle afferent signals modulate visual attention. Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 53 (11). pp. 7004-7009.

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Abstract

<h4>Purpose</h4>Extraocular muscle afferent signals contribute to oculomotor control and visual localization. Prompted by the close links between the oculomotor and attention systems, it was investigated whether these proprioceptive signals also modulated the allocation of attention in space.<h4>Methods</h4>A suction sclera contact lens was used to impose an eye rotation on the nonviewing, dominant eye. With their viewing, nondominant eye, participants (n = 4) fixated centrally and detected targets presented at 5° in the left or right visual hemifield. The position of the viewing eye was monitored throughout the experiment. As a control, visual localization was tested using finger pointing without visual feedback of the hand, whereas the nonviewing eye remained deviated.<h4>Results</h4>The sustained passive rotation of the occluded, dominant eye, while the other eye maintained central fixation, resulted in a lateralized change in the detectability of visual targets. In all participants, the advantage in speed and accuracy for detecting right versus left hemifield targets that occurred during a sustained rightward eye rotation of the dominant eye was reduced or reversed by a leftward eye rotation. The control experiment confirmed that the eye deviation procedure caused pointing errors consistent with an approximately 2° shift in perceived eye position, in the direction of rotation of the nonviewing eye.<h4>Conclusions</h4>With the caveat of the small number of participants, these results suggest that extraocular muscle afferent signals modulate the deployment of attention in visual space.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Issue date: 9 October, 2012. Published online before print September 13, 2012. Special Issue - An Eye on Glaucoma: New Opportunities for Treatment.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Oculomotor Muscles, Afferent Pathways, Humans, Eye Movements, Space Perception, Attention, Proprioception, Dominance, Ocular, Adult, Middle Aged, Female, Male, Eye Movement Measurements
Subjects: ?? QP ??
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Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 12 Oct 2012 16:16
Last Modified: 16 Dec 2022 04:37
DOI: 10.1167/iovs.12-10249
Publisher's Statement : Copyright 2012 The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Inc.
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/7835