Is covert attention necessary for programming accurate saccades? Evidence from saccade-locked event-related potentials

For decades, researchers have assumed that shifts of covert attention mandatorily occur prior to eye movements to improve perceptual processing of objects before they are fixated. However, recent research suggests that the N2pc component-a neural measure of covert attentional allocation-does not always precede eye movements. The current study investigated whether the N2pc component mandatorily precedes eye movements and assessed its role in the accuracy of gaze control. In three experiments, participants searched for a letter of a specific color (e.g., red) and directed gaze to it as a response. Electroencephalograms and eye movements were coregistered to determine whether neural markers of covert attention preceded the initial shift of gaze. The results showed that the presaccadic N2pc only occurred under limited conditions: when there were many potential target locations and distractors. Crucially, there was no evidence that the presence or magnitude of the presaccadic N2pc was associated with improved eye movement accuracy in any of the experiments. Interestingly, ERP decoding analyses were able to classify the target location well before the eyes started to move, which likely reflects a presaccadic cognitive process that is distinct from the attentional process measured by the N2pc. Ultimately, we conclude that the covert attentional mechanism indexed by the N2pc is not necessary for precise gaze control.