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Fixation offset and stop signal intensity effects on saccadic countermanding: a crossmodal investigation

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Abstract

Two experiments utilized the stop signal paradigm to examine whether fixation offset and stop signal intensity influenced saccadic inhibition. There was a robust fixation offset effect on saccadic latencies. However, contrary to expectations, fixation offset did not influence saccadic inhibition latencies. Importantly, saccadic inhibition latencies were found to be influenced by stop signal salience, with a more intense signal leading to faster stopping. This pattern of results was observed whether the stop signal was presented in the visual or auditory modality. The results provide new insights into the mechanisms of inhibition and help resolve previous inconsistencies in the literature.

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Notes

  1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants to A.K. from NSERC, the Michael Smith Foundation of Health Research and the Human Early Learning Partnership. The authors wish to thank Jennifer Quan, Christine Yeung and for their assistance in data collection and to Stephanie Ho for her assistance in task development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, V6T 1Z4, Vancouver, Canada

    Sharon Morein-Zamir & Alan Kingstone

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  1. Sharon Morein-Zamir
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  2. Alan Kingstone
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Correspondence to Sharon Morein-Zamir.

Appendix

Appendix

To ensure that the intensity of the stop signal was sufficient to produce a behavioural change, two control studies (for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, respectively) were conducted on separate groups of 12 participants from the same subject pool. The procedure was similar to the stop signal task. However, now participants were required to press the space bar as fast as possible in response to the stop signals while ignoring the targets appearing to the left or the right. Participants completed ten trials in each combination of the fixation offset and signal intensity conditions. In addition, ten trials (20%) were catch trials where a stop signal did not appear and thus participants were required to withhold the response. The order of trial presentation was random, with stop signals appearing randomly at 525, 575 or 625 ms following fixation onset. No eye movement data was recorded for these studies.

The results for both studies confirmed significant effects of signal intensity on manual RTs. In Experiment 1 the low intensity visual signal led to slower RTs compared to the high intensity signal (338 vs. 302 ms, respectively), F(1, 11) = 34.24, MSE = 395.88, P < 0.001. The results of Experiment 2 were similar with faster RTs for the auditory high intensity signal (419 vs. 367 ms, respectively), F(1, 11) = 12.7, MSE = 2,555.01, P < 0.01. Neither fixation condition nor the interaction reached significance in either experiment. Hence, the control studies confirmed that the two signal intensities in each experiment were sufficiently different so as to account for an observable behavioral difference.

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Morein-Zamir, S., Kingstone, A. Fixation offset and stop signal intensity effects on saccadic countermanding: a crossmodal investigation. Exp Brain Res 175, 453–462 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0564-x

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