Key Terms
Define covert spatial attention.
This is selecting a location or item without making a large overt eye movement.
What was a working-memory selection task?
In this paper, participants selected one item after a cue in a task involving memory for oriented colored bars.
What neural marker was the focus of Paper 2?
What is the N2pc?
What is a microsaccade?
This is a tiny fixational eye movement that can be biased toward an attended location.
What is a remembered item?
At the time of selection, participants were selecting this kind of item rather than a visible external object.
Paper 2 tested selection in what two contexts?
Perception and working memory
What is alpha lateralization?
This EEG pattern generally reflects spatial selection or prioritization of one side relative to the other.
What is a toward microsaccade?
In Paper 1, this kind of microsaccade went in the direction of the remembered location of the cued item.
In Paper 2, which microsaccade class showed the largest N2pc?
Toward-microsaccade trials
What is the N2pc?
This is a lateralized posterior ERP component, usually around 200–300 ms, associated with attentional selection.
What was the central conclusion about alpha lateralization on no-microsaccade trials?
The key result was that alpha lateralization still appeared on these trials.
What happened to the N2pc on no-microsaccade trials?
On these trials, the N2pc was reduced but still present.
What is the difference between alpha lateralization and the N2pc?
One of these unfolds more as a sustained oscillatory pattern, while the other is a more brief cue-locked ERP component.
Why was the working-memory design especially useful for interpreting the microsaccade results?
This design feature helped rule out the idea that the microsaccade effects were only due to changing retinal input from a visible target.
What was the paper’s main conclusion about whether microsaccades directly cause the N2pc?
Strongly modulate the N2pc, but do not directly cause it.