Trial-type probability and task-switching effects on behavioral response characteristics in a mixed saccade task

Exp Brain Res. 2015 Mar;233(3):959-69. doi: 10.1007/s00221-014-4170-z. Epub 2014 Dec 24.

Abstract

Eye movement circuitry involved in saccade production offers a model for studying cognitive control: visually guided prosaccades are stimulus-directed responses, while goal-driven antisaccades rely upon more complex control processes to inhibit the prepotent tendency to look toward a cue, transform its spatial location, and generate a volitional saccade in the opposite direction. By manipulating the relative probability of these saccade types, we measured participants' behavioral responses to different levels of implicit trial-type probability and task-switching demands in conditions with relatively long inter-trial fixation and trial-type cue lengths. Results indicated that when prosaccades were less probable in a run, more prosaccade errors were generated; however, for antisaccades, trial-type probability had no effect on the percent of correct responses. For reaction times, specifically in runs with a larger probability of antisaccade trials, latencies increased for both anti- and pro-saccades. Furthermore, task switching resulted in a lower percentage of correct responses on switched trials, but a prior antisaccade trial led to slower reaction times for both trial types (i.e., a task switch cost for prosaccades and switch benefit for antisaccades). These findings indicate that cognitive control demands and residual inhibition from antisaccades alter performance relative to trial-type probability and task switching within a run, with the prosaccade task showing greater susceptibility to the influence of a large probability of cognitively complex antisaccades.

Publication types

  • Randomized Controlled Trial

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Executive Function / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Inhibition, Psychological*
  • Male
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Probability
  • Reaction Time / physiology*
  • Saccades / physiology*
  • Young Adult