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Dissociable effects of subliminal incentives on initiation and velocity control of goal-directed eye movements

Vasko Kilian Hinze, Ozge Uslu, Jessica Emily Antono, Melanie Wilke, Arezoo Pooresmaeili
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.11.377986
Vasko Kilian Hinze
aPerception and Cognition Group, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen - A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Germany, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
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Ozge Uslu
aPerception and Cognition Group, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen - A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Germany, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
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Jessica Emily Antono
aPerception and Cognition Group, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen - A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Germany, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
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Melanie Wilke
bDepartment of Cognitive Neurology, UMG, University Medicine Goettingen, Robert-Koch-Str. 40, Goettingen, 37075, Germany
cGerman Primate Center, DPZ, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, Goettingen, 37077, Germany
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Arezoo Pooresmaeili
aPerception and Cognition Group, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen - A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Germany, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
dLeibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
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  • For correspondence: a.pooresmaeili@eni-g.de
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Abstract

Over the last decades, several studies have demonstrated that conscious and unconscious reward incentives both affect performance in physical and cognitive tasks, suggesting that goal-pursuit can arise from an unconscious will. Whether the planning of goal-directed saccadic eye movements during an effortful task can also be affected by subliminal reward cues has not been systematically investigated. We employed a novel task where participants had to make several eye movements back and forth between a fixation point and a number of peripheral targets. The total number of targets visited by the eyes in a fixed amount of time determined participants’ monetary gain. The magnitude of the reward at stake was briefly shown at the beginning of each trial and was masked by pattern images superimposed in time. We found that when reward cues were fully visible and thus consciously perceived, higher reward enhanced all saccade parameters. However, a dissociation was observed between the effects of subliminal rewards on saccade initiation and peak velocities. While truly subliminal reward cues did increase the number of saccades, they did not enhance saccades’ peak velocity. Additionally, participants who had reached a truly subliminal level of reward perception showed a decrement in accuracy as a function of reward across all visibility levels, as saccade endpoint error was larger when higher reward incentives were expected. This suboptimal speed-accuracy trade-off did not occur in the supraliminal group. These results suggest that although saccades’ initiation can be triggered by subconscious mechanisms, conscious awareness is required to optimally adjust the velocity and accuracy of eye movements based on the expected rewards.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • ↵1 VKH and OU are joint first authors

  • ↵2 MW and AP are joint last authors

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted November 12, 2020.
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Dissociable effects of subliminal incentives on initiation and velocity control of goal-directed eye movements
Vasko Kilian Hinze, Ozge Uslu, Jessica Emily Antono, Melanie Wilke, Arezoo Pooresmaeili
bioRxiv 2020.11.11.377986; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.11.377986
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Dissociable effects of subliminal incentives on initiation and velocity control of goal-directed eye movements
Vasko Kilian Hinze, Ozge Uslu, Jessica Emily Antono, Melanie Wilke, Arezoo Pooresmaeili
bioRxiv 2020.11.11.377986; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.11.377986

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