Control of saccadic eye movements: Impact of stimulus type on effects of flanker, flanker position and trial sequence B Olk1, C Peschke1, C C Hilgetag2 |
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1School for Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany |
| The experiment demonstrates the impact of stimulus type on the control of saccadic eye movements. More specifically, using the flanker paradigm, we examined whether stimulus type (arrows vs. letters) modulates effects of flanker and flanker position. Further, we assessed trial sequence effects and whether they are affected by stimulus type. A central target (a ‘<’ or ‘>’ in the arrow condition or an ‘N’ or ‘X’ in the letter condition) instructed a left- or rightward saccade. The target was accompanied by a congruent or incongruent flanker, shown to the left or right of the target. Considering the different processing required for arrows and letters, dissimilar flanker effects (FE), flanker position effects and trial sequence effects were predicted for arrows versus letters. The main findings demonstrated that (i) flanker effects were stronger for arrows than letters, (ii) flanker position more strongly modulated the flanker effect for letters than arrows, and (iii) trial sequence effects partly differed between the two stimulus types. We discuss these findings in the context of a more automatic and effortless processing of arrows, being overlearned symbols of direction, relative to letter stimuli. |
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