Saccades Directed at Previously Attended Locations in Space

Having previously fixated a location increases the latency of subsequent saccadic eye movements towards that location. In a saccadic pursult task, the last saccade of each trial was directed directly at, or up to three deg away from the location of a previous fixation on that trial. Saccades to a previously fixated location were longer by 8 to 15 msec than those directed 3 deg away from any previously fixated location, even 1700 msec after the prior fixation. The elevation in saccade latency is consistent with an attentional bias in favor of fresh sources of information.