Orienting attention in the space around us is a fundamental prerequisite for willed actions. On Earth, at 1 g, orienting attention requires the integration of vestibular signals and vision, although the specific vestibular contribution to voluntary and automatic components of visuospatial attention remains largely unknown. Here, we show that unweighting of the otolith organ in zero gravity during parabolic flight, selectively enhances stimulus-driven capture of automatic visuospatial attention, while weakening voluntary maintenance of covert attention. These findings, besides advancing our comprehension of the basic influence of the vestibular function on voluntary and automatic components of visuospatial attention, may have operational implications for the identification of effective countermeasures to be applied in forthcoming human deep space exploration and habitation, and on Earth, for patients’ rehabilitation.

将注意力集中在我们周围的空间是意志行动的基本先决条件。在地球上，在 1 g 时，定向注意力需要整合前庭信号和视觉，尽管前庭对视觉空间注意力的自愿和自动成分的具体贡献仍然很大程度上未知。在这里，我们展示了在抛物线飞行期间在零重力下减轻耳石器官的重量，选择性地增强了刺激驱动的自动视觉空间注意力的捕获，同时削弱了隐蔽注意力的自愿维持。这些发现，除了增进我们对前庭功能对视觉空间注意力的自愿和自动成分的基本影响的理解之外，