Two new studies from the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Neuroscience have delved into the relationship between attention and eye movements and the brain’s coordination of these processes. Attention enables us to focus on specific objects while disregarding distractions, with our eyes naturally gazing towards the object of focus. It has long been suspected that attention and rapid eye movements, known as saccades, are closely linked. However, the studies challenge the assumption that pre-saccadic attention is always beneficial. The researchers found that the perceptual advantage of pre-saccadic attention is lost when there is a sudden object change just before our eyes shift towards it. This makes it more difficult for us to process what changed. Another experiment decoupled attention from eye movements in monkeys, showing that attention signals are generated in the more superficial layers of the monkey’s visual cortex, while eye movement signals are produced in deeper layers. Understanding such mechanisms is crucial for developing therapies for attention disorders like ADHD.