Abstract
Antisaccades require the suppression of a stimulus-driven response (i.e., response suppression) and the computation of a movement plan mirror-symmetrical to the location of a target (i.e., vector inversion). The goal of the present study was to determine whether response suppression, vector inversion or both contribute to previously reported differences in the online control of pro- and antisaccades (Heath in Exp Brain Res 203:743–752, 2010a). Pro- and antisaccades were completed in separate blocks (i.e., blocked schedule) and a block wherein the spatial relation between stimulus and response was provided at response cuing (i.e., random schedule). Notably, the random schedule provides a relative means for equating response suppression across pro- and antisaccades. To examine online trajectory amendments, we computed the proportion of variance (R 2 values) explained by the spatial location of the eye at early, middle and late stages of saccade trajectories relative to the saccade’s ultimate endpoint. The basis for this analysis is that between-task differences in R 2 magnitudes reflect differences in the use of feedback for online trajectory amendments: small R 2 values represent a trajectory supported via online control whereas larger R 2 values reflect a reduction in online control. Results show that antisaccades yielded larger R 2 values than prosaccades from early to late stages of saccade trajectories, and this finding was observed regardless of whether or not tasks were equated for response suppression. Thus, we propose that the intentional nature of vector inversion disrupts the normally online control of saccades and renders a mode of control that is not optimized to support error-reducing trajectory amendments.
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Notes
As indicated in the “Methods”, trials involving a direction error were placed back in the random trial matrix and rerun. Thus, the number of direction errors reported here represents the average number of error trials (per participant) in each of the blocked and random schedules.
MT data are reported in order to show that differences in endpoint accuracy are unrelated to a speed/accuracy trade-off and to demonstrate that between-task and between-schedule differences in R 2 values are unrelated to movement time differences.
In a previous study, we demonstrated that saccades directed left or right of a central fixation did not influence the spatiotemporal parameters of pro- and antisaccade trajectories (Heath et al. 2010a; see also West et al. 2009). For that reason, space (i.e., targets in left vs. right space) was not included in our ANOVA model.
As a matter of course, we do not compute multi-directional post hoc contrasts. That said, we thought it important to demonstrate that blocked schedule prosaccades elicited faster RTs than any of the other experimental conditions. Thus, comparison of prosaccades across feedback schedules revealed that blocked schedule ones were reliably faster than their random schedule counterparts (t(11) = 6.84, P < 0.001).
Examination of the ANOVA summary for R 2 values revealed F-ratios less than one for schedule, schedule by task, and time by schedule by task. The null effect of blocked and random schedules on saccade trajectories is therefore not tied to an inadequate replication sample size.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and a Major Academic Development Fund from the University of Western Ontario.
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Heath, M., Weiler, J., Marriott, K. et al. Vector inversion diminishes the online control of antisaccades. Exp Brain Res 209, 117–127 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2525-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2525-7