Figure 1a. Saccadic fixator. Figure 1b. Peripheral awareness trainer.

The ability of the participants to respond rapidly to peripherally presented stimuli was assessed by using the Wayne Peripheral Awareness Trainer (PAT) (Figure 1b). In this test, the participant was told to fixate on a central constant yellow light and to move a hand-held joystick after detecting peripheral lights in different directions (a control combination of display-testing, mode switch-8 lights and timer 60 seconds-off was used). After an initial practise trial, three test trials were administered and the mean of the best response times in each direction was calculated as dependent measure (PAT, ms).