The first mode of gaze behavior involved gaze shifts to the next target well in advance of the end of the hold phase. By fixating the next target in advance of the initiation of the cursor movement, participants would be able to use proprioceptive and/or motor signals (i.e., efference copy) related to gaze position to help plan the movement of the cursor to the next target well in advance of movement initiation (Paillard,
1996; Prablanc et al.,
1979). These gaze-position-related signals would also be available throughout the cursor movement to help guide the cursor to the target (Crawford, Medendorp, & Marotta,
2004; Goodale, Pelisson, & Prablanc,
1986; Prablanc & Martin,
1992). Therefore, shifting gaze to the target before the cursor starts to move would enable optimal use of visual feedback throughout the cursor movement. The early gaze shifts we observed during late learning and steady-state performance are reminiscent of “look ahead” saccades that occur in many familiar manual tasks involving object manipulation (Hayhoe & Ballard,
2005; Land & Hayhoe,
2001; Mennie, Hayhoe, & Sullivan,
2007). For example, in tasks such as making tea or sandwiches, gaze fixations often move to the next object to be manipulated as early as 1 s before the current action phase is complete (Hayhoe, Shrivastava, Mruczek, & Pelz,
2003; Land, Mennie, & Rusted,
1999). For all participants, we found that the sooner gaze shifted to the next target, the earlier the cursor exited. A possible explanation for this finding is that the time required to initiate the planned movement depends on how well the planned movement is prepared. This suggestion is in line with studies showing that preparatory processes in premotor cortex during delay periods (between instruction stimuli and go signals) reduce reaction times in initiating planned movements (Churchland, Santhanam, & Shenoy,
2006; Churchland & Shenoy,
2007). Given this explanation, our finding suggests that directing gaze to the forthcoming target ahead of movement initiation facilitates the specification of the motor commands used for cursor transport towards the next target.