Refixation control in free viewing: a specialized mechanism divulged by eye-movement-related brain activity.

In free viewing, the eyes return to previously visited locations rather frequently, even though the attentional and memory-related processes controlling eyemovement show a strong antirefixation bias. To overcome this bias, a special refixation triggering mechanism may have to be recruited. We probed the neural evidence for such a mechanism by combining eye tracking with EEG recording. A distinctive signal associated with refixation planning was observed in the EEG during the presaccadic interval: the presaccadic potential was reduced in amplitude before a refixation compared with normal fixations. The result offers direct evidence for a special refixation mechanism that operates in the saccade planning stage of eye movement control. Once the eyes have landed on the revisited location, acquisition of visual information proceeds indistinguishably from ordinary fixations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]