Speed of Covert Orienting of Attention and Express Saccades.

These experiments provide support for the idea that express saccades are overt signs of presence of covert attention at a particular location. They provide no support for the idea that the subject must first disengage from the cue before express saccades can occur. Our studies support a functional linkage between covert shifts of attention and the eye movement system. It is comforting to see that covert mechanisms can produce changes in the subjects overt orienting behavior in the form of efficient eye movements.