ABSTRACT
Cognitive control of visual attention (i.e., the allocation of processing resources to locations in visual space in the absence of eye movements) has been amply demonstrated in recent years. The role of the eye movement system in producing these internal shifts of attention has been disputed. In this chapter, I review the evidence on cognitive control of visual attention and propose an explicit oculomotor readiness mechanism that is consistent with that evidence and several other findings as well. This proposal predicts that (1) a readiness to move the eyes to a particular location will facilitate detection of stimuli appearing at that location; and (2) cognitive control of visual attention is produced by preparing to move the eyes to the to-be-attended location. These predictions were tested in two dual-task experiments and both were clearly disconfirmed. It is concluded that cognitive control of visual attention is independent of the eye movement system, even though attentional shifts may be reflexively linked to overt shifts in eye position.
