Making the Best of Remaining Vision—The Role of Focal Attention

Abstract

This report describes three experiments that were conducted to examine topographic features of sustained focal attention. They also investigated the relationship of attentional topography with the choice of location of a preferred retinal locus for eccentric fixation. We used 50 subjects altogether, some were patients with a maculopathy, some healthy control subjects. Attentional performance differed strongly dependent on the location in the visual field, in normal subjects and patients alike. The experiments provide indirect evidence (#2) and direct evidence (#3) that topographic attentional features can influence the choice of a location of a retinal area used for eccentric fixation.

Keywords:

• Low vision
• preferred retinal locus
• attention
• focal attention
• sustained attention