The Role of Awareness in the Error -Processing of Involuntary Eye Movements

Previous research has showed that salient events, such as new objects presented with abrupt luminance onset, have a powerful effect on our covert (attentional capture) and overt (oculomotor capture) behavior. Given the ubiquitous nature of eye movements in everyday activities it is important to determine whether oculomotor capture by task-irrelevant events, which is often impervious to conscious awareness, is detected and processed in the same way as erroneous eye movements to the task-relevant events. Concurrent recording of event-related potentials and eye movements were used to investigate the relationship between awareness, error-processing, as manifested by error-related components (ERN, Pe), and oculomotor capture. From the results of two experiments it appears that oculomotor capture is processed similar to other kinds of interruptions of ongoing goal-directed activity, and is registered even in the absence of subjective report. The ERN amplitude was greater when participants were aware of making an error, however, a smaller ERN was also observed even when participants were unaware of an error. The Pe was present only when participants were aware of making an error. The role of awareness in the mechanisms of detection and correction of these often very significant interruptions is discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Belopolsky, Artem V.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kramer, Arthur F.

• Biology, Neuroscience

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3198925

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82082