Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

One function of visual attention is as a filter that selects one region of the visual field for enhanced detection and recognition processing. A second function of attention is to provide localization information, which can be used in guiding motor activity. A visual system in which the eyes can be moved requires such localization information to guide eye movements. Furthermore, the control of arm and hand movements for object manipulation is simplified by attentional localization of the hand with respect to a fixation frame centered on the object. This paper describes this role of attention in the visual guidance of simple motor behaviors associated with unskilled object manipulation behaviors.