The Allocation of Attention During Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements

The spatial-temporal allocation of attention during smooth pursuit eye movements is poorly understood. In this chapter we review evidence showing that attention contributes to both saccades and smooth pursuit. We then discuss results from our own recent studies using a dual-task paradigm in which subjects pursued a moving stimulus and pressed a button when targets appeared in the periphery. The results from these studies are consistent with the hypothesis that the allocation of attention is biased to a location just in front of the pursuit stimulus and that this bias can be altered by pursuit velocity.