Do the eyes have it? A comparison of eye-movement and attentional-probe based approaches to indexing attentional control within the anti-saccade paradigm

Individual differences in the ability to control visual attention, often termed ‘attentional control’, has been of particular interest to cognitive researchers. Researchers’ interest in attentional control has led to the development of specific tasks intended to measure this attentional ability. One such task is the anti-saccade task. While attentional performance on the anti-saccade task is typically indexed through the recording of eye movements, increasingly researchers are reporting the use of probe-based methods of indexing attentional performance on the task. Critically, no research has yet determined the convergence of indices of performance yielded by each of these assessment methods, nor compared the reliability of these indices. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether the index of attentional control yielded by a probe-based adaptation of the task converges with the index of attentional control provided by the traditional eye movement task, and whether these alternative approaches have comparable levels of psychometric reliability. The present study will require individuals to complete a probe-based task and an eye movement task, and an index of anti-saccade cost will be computed from each. Correlational analyses will determine the degree to which the anti-saccade cost indices provided by each task converge in their assessment of individual differences in attention control. Further analyses will compare the internal consistency of these two anti-saccade cost indices, and their reliability over time. This manuscript has passed peer review and has been issued an in-principle acceptance (IPA) by the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, indicating that the article will be published pending successful completion of the study according to the exact methods and analytic procedures outlined, as well as a defensible and evidence-bound interpretation of the results.