Saliency and priority modulation in a pop-out paradigm: pupil size and microsaccades.

Saliency and priority modulation in a pop-out paradigm: pupil size and microsaccades.
Biol Psychol. 2020 May 07;:107901
Authors: Wang CA, Huang J, Brien DC, Munoz DP
Abstract
A salient stimulus can trigger a coordinated orienting response consisting of a saccade, pupil, and microsaccadic responses. Saliency models predict that the degree of visual conspicuity of all visual stimuli guides visual orienting. By presenting a multiple-item array that included an oddball colored item (pop-out), randomly mixed colored items (mixed-color), or single-color items (single-color), we examined the effects of saliency and priority (saliency + relevancy) on pupil size and microsaccade responses. Larger pupil responses were produced in the pop-out compared to the mixed-color or single-color conditions after stimulus presentation. However, the saliency modulation on microsaccades was not significant. Furthermore, although goal-relevancy information did not modulate pupil responses and microsaccade rate, microsaccade direction was biased toward the pop-out item when it was the subsequent saccadic target. Together, our results demonstrate saliency modulation on pupil size and priority effects on microsaccade direction during visual pop-out.
PMID: 32389837 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Biological Psychology - May 6, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Wang CA, Huang J, Brien DC, Munoz DP Tags: Biol Psychol Source Type: research