@article{LangeZweckSinn2017,
  author    = {Lange, Elke B. and Zweck, Fabian and Sinn, Petra},
  title     = {Microsaccade-rate indicates absorption by music listening},
  series = {Consciousness and cognition},
  volume    = {55},
  journal   = {Consciousness and cognition},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {San Diego},
  issn      = {1053-8100},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.concog.2017.07.009},
  pages     = {59 -- 78},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {The power of music is a literary topos, which can be attributed to intense and personally significant experiences, one of them being the state of absorption. Such phenomenal states are difficult to grasp objectively. We investigated the state of musical absorption by using eye tracking. We utilized a load related definition of state absorption: multimodal resources are committed to create a unified representation of music. Resource allocation was measured indirectly by microsaccade rate, known to indicate cognitive processing load. We showed in Exp. 1 that microsaccade rate also indicates state absorption. Hence, there is cross-modal coupling between an auditory aesthetic experience and fixational eye movements. When removing the fixational stimulus in Exp. 2, saccades are no longer generated upon visual input and the cross modal coupling disappeared. Results are interpreted in favor of the load hypothesis of micro saccade rate and against the assumption of general slowing by state absorption.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MeybergSinnEngbertetal.2017,
  author    = {Meyberg, Susann and Sinn, Petra and Engbert, Ralf and Sommer, Werner},
  title     = {Revising the link between microsaccades and the spatial cueing of voluntary attention},
  series = {Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision.},
  volume    = {133},
  journal   = {Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision.},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0042-6989},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.visres.2017.01.001},
  pages     = {47 -- 60},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Microsaccades - i.e., small fixational saccades generated in the superior colliculus (SC) - have been linked to spatial attention. While maintaining fixation, voluntary shifts of covert attention toward peripheral targets result in a sequence of attention-aligned and attention-opposing microsaccades. In most previous studies the direction of the voluntary shift is signaled by a spatial cue (e.g., a leftwards pointing arrow) that presents the most informative part of the cue (e.g., the arrowhead) in the to-be attended visual field. Here we directly investigated the influence of cue position and tested the hypothesis that microsaccades align with cue position rather than with the attention shift. In a spatial cueing task, we presented the task-relevant part of a symmetric cue either in the to-be attended visual field or in the opposite field. As a result, microsaccades were still weakly related to the covert attention shift; however, they were strongly related to the position of the cue even if that required a movement opposite to the cued attention shift. Moreover, if microsaccades aligned with cue position, we observed stronger cueing effects on manual response times. Our interpretation of the data is supported by numerical simulations of a computational model of microsaccade generation that is based on SC properties, where we explain our findings by separate attentional mechanisms for cue localization and the cued attention shift. We conclude that during cueing of voluntary attention, microsaccades are related to both - the overt attentional selection of the task-relevant part of the cue stimulus and the subsequent covert attention shift.(C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{RolfsLaubrockKliegl2006,
  author    = {Rolfs, Martin and Laubrock, Jochen and Kliegl, Reinhold},
  title     = {Shortening and Prolongation of Saccade Latencies Following Microsaccades},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-57012},
  year      = {2006},
  abstract  = {When the eyes fixate at a point in a visual scene, small saccades rapidly shift the image on the retina. The effect of these microsaccades on the latency of subsequent large-scale saccades may be twofold. First, microsaccades are associated with an enhancement of visual perception. Their occurrence during saccade target perception should, thus, decrease saccade latencies. On the other hand, microsaccades likely indicate activity in fixation-related oculomotor neurons. These represent competitors to saccade-related cells in the interplay of gaze holding and shifting. Consequently, an increase in saccade latencies after microsaccades would be expected. Here, we present evidence for both aspects of microsaccadic impact on saccade latency. In a delayed response task, participants made saccades to visible or memorized targets. First, microsaccade occurrence up to 50 ms before target disappearance correlated with 18 ms (or 8\%) faster saccades to memorized targets. Second, if microsaccades occurred shortly (i.e., < 150 ms) before a saccade was required, saccadic reaction times in visual and memory trials were increased by about 40 ms (or 16\%). Hence, microsaccades can have opposite consequences for saccade latencies, pointing at a differential role of these fixational eye movements in preparation of motor programs.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{RolfsEngbertKliegl2005,
  author    = {Rolfs, Martin and Engbert, Ralf and Kliegl, Reinhold},
  title     = {Crossmodal coupling of oculomotor controland spatial attention in vision and audition},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-56804},
  year      = {2005},
  abstract  = {Fixational eye movements occur involuntarily during visual fixation of stationary scenes. The fastest components of these miniature eye movements are microsaccades, which can be observed about once per second. Recent studies demonstrated that microsaccades are linked to covert shifts of visual attention [e.g., Engbert \& Kliegl (2003), Vision Res 43:1035-1045]. Here,we generalized this finding in two ways. First, we used peripheral cues, rather than the centrally presented cues of earlier studies. Second, we spatially cued attention in vision and audition to visual and auditory targets. An analysis of microsaccade responses revealed an equivalent impact of visual and auditory cues on microsaccade-rate signature (i.e., an initial inhibition followed by an overshoot and a final return to the pre-cue baseline rate). With visual cues or visual targets,microsaccades were briefly aligned with cue direction and then opposite to cue direction during the overshoot epoch, probably as a result of an inhibition of an automatic saccade to the peripheral cue. With left auditory cues and auditory targets microsaccades oriented in cue direction. Thus, microsaccades can be used to study crossmodal integration of sensory information and to map the time course of saccade preparation during covert shifts of visual and auditory attention.},
  language  = {en}
}