Gaze pursuit, 'Attention pursuit' and their Effects on Cortical Activations

Introduction: An interesting or relevant moving object like an approaching car draws our attention on it and we follow the object by generating smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM). Gaze and attention directions are usually conjunct and remain conjunct during SPEM. In this study we investigate whether gaze and attention directions can be split during pursuit. We intended to gain information about the cortical control of ocular tracking vs. attentive tracking and their interactions. Methods: We presented a horizontally and sinusoidally moving target for pursuit and simultaneously a stationary target for fixation.…