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Reaction times of manual responses to a visual stimulus at the goal of a planned memory-guided saccade in the monkey

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Abstract

Monkeys demonstrate improved contrast sensitivity at the goal of a planned memory-guided saccade (Science 299:81–86, 2003). Such perceptual improvements have been ascribed to an endogenous attentional advantage induced by the saccade plan. Speeded reaction times have also been used as evidence for attention. We therefore asked whether the attentional advantage at the goal of a planned memory-guided saccade led to speeded manual reaction times following probes presented at the saccade goal in a simple detection task. We found that monkeys showed slower manual reaction times when the probe appeared at the memorized goal of the planned saccade when compared to manual reaction times following a probe that appeared opposite the saccade goal. Flashing a distractor at the saccade goal after target presentation appeared to slow reaction times further. Our data, combined with prior results, suggest that a spatially localized inhibition operates on the neural representation of the saccade goal. This inhibition may be closely related or identical to the processes underlying inhibition-of-return. We also found that if the same detection task was interleaved with a difficult perceptual discrimination task, manual reaction times became faster when the probe was at the saccade goal. We interpret these results as being an effect of task difficulty; the more difficult interleaved task may have engaged endogenous attentional resources more effectively, allowing it to override the inhibition at the saccade goal. We construct and discuss a simple working hypothesis for the relationship between the effects of prior attention on neural activity in salience maps and on performance in detection and discrimination tasks.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Drs. Jillian Fecteau, Alla Ignashchenkova, Raymond Klein, and Robert Rafal for helpful discussions of their work, and Dr. John McClurkin for providing upgraded versions of the REX control system and the VEX graphics system. We also thank Dr. Mohammed Osman and Dr. Girma Asfaw for veterinary care, Yana Pavlova for wonderful and expert assistance with animal care, and Latoya Palmer for facilitating everything. This research was supported by grants to Michael E. Goldberg from the National Eye Institute (R01 EY014978-01 and R24 EY015634-01), the Whitehall, James S. MacDonnell and W.M. Keck Foundations, and the David Mahoney Chair at the Columbia University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mahoney Center for Brain and Behavior, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    B. Suresh Krishna, Sara C. Steenrod, James W. Bisley, Yevgeniy B. Sirotin & Michael E. Goldberg

  2. Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Michael E. Goldberg

  3. 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 87, Rm 561, NYSPI Kolb Annex, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    B. Suresh Krishna

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  1. B. Suresh Krishna
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  2. Sara C. Steenrod
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  3. James W. Bisley
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  4. Yevgeniy B. Sirotin
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  5. Michael E. Goldberg
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Correspondence to B. Suresh Krishna.

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Krishna, B., Steenrod, S., Bisley, J. et al. Reaction times of manual responses to a visual stimulus at the goal of a planned memory-guided saccade in the monkey. Exp Brain Res 173, 102–114 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0370-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0370-5

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