Attentional shifts bias microsaccade direction but do not cause new microsaccades

Brain circuitry that controls where we look also contributes to attentional selection of visual contents outside current fixation, or content within the spatial layout of working memory. A behavioural manifestation of this contribution comes from modulations in microsaccade direction that accompany spatial attention shifts. Here, we address whether such modulations come about because attention shifts trigger new microsaccades or whether, instead, spatial attention only biases the direction of ongoing microsaccades that would have been made whether or not attention was also shifted. We utilised an internal-selective-attention task that has recently been shown to yield robust spatial microsaccade modulations and compared microsaccade rates following colour retrocues that were carefully matched for sensory input, but differed in whether they invited an attention shift or not. If attention shifts trigger new microsaccades then we would expect more microsaccades following attention-directing cues than following neutral cues. In contrast, we found no evidence for an increase in overall microsaccade rate, despite robust modulations in microsaccade direction. This implies that shifting spatial attention biases the direction of ongoing microsaccades without changing the probability of microsaccade occurrence. These findings help to explain why microsaccades and visual-spatial shifts of attention are often correlated but not obligatorily linked.