Endogenous attention modulates the temporal window of integration

Abstract

Constructing useful representations of our visual environment requires the ability to selectively pay attention to particular locations at specific moments. Whilst there has been much investigation on the influence of selective attention on spatial discrimination, less is known about its influence on temporal discrimination. In particular, little is known about how endogenous attention influences two fundamental and opposing temporal processes: segregation - the parsing of the visual scene over time into separate features, and integration - the binding together of related elements. In four experiments, we tested how endogenous cueing to a location influences each of these opposing processes. Results demonstrate a strong cueing effect on both segregation and integration. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that endogenous attention can influence both of these opposing processes in a flexible manner. The finding has implications for arbitrating between accounts of the multiple modulatory mechanisms comprising selective attention.

Different effects of spatial and temporal attention on the integration and segregation of stimuli in time

“…Importantly, visual stimulation remains constant, with endogenous cues predicting either where or when the upcoming target will likely arrive. For purely spatial orienting, we expected to find a performance benefit of valid spatial cueing and a performance cost of invalid cueing for both integration and segregation, consistent with our earlier work (Sharp et al, 2018). In the case of temporal orienting the outcome is less clear, and we did not have strong predictions.…”

“…For these tests, we report Cohen's d z , which is a measure of effect size for repeated measures tests. Figure 2A shows that in the preexperiment with no cueing, participants performed better at integration when the ISI was shorter, and better at segregation when the ISI was longer, as expected (Sharp et al, 2018;Wutz et al, 2016). The mean intersection at which performance was matched for integration and segregation was close to the fixed ISI of 50 ms used for the main experimental blocks.…”

“…Given that the primary research question of the study was whether the effects of spatial cueing on temporal processing would be found not only when spatiotemporal cues were used (as in previous work), but also when purely spatial cues were used (as in the present study), we compared the present results with previous findings. Following Verhagen and Wagenmakers (2014), we conducted a Bayes factor replication test, taking as the input t and n values, to quantify the evidence in favor of a successful replication of the spatial cueing effects from our earlier study (Sharp et al, 2018). By comparing cueing effects between two experiments with near-identical methodologies that differed in terms of whether the cues were spatiotemporal or purely spatial in nature, we found extreme evidence in favor of a successful replication of cueing effects on temporal processing for all comparisons: valid cueing on segregation (BF > 100), invalid cueing on segregation (BF > 100), valid cueing on integration (BF > 100), and invalid cueing on segregation (BF > 100).…”

“…After the cue interval, the fixation cross became entirely red again, and the first display appeared on screen for 10 ms. The two frames comprised an odd-element (OE) or missing-dot (MD) task, as had been used previously to measure both temporal integration and segregation using the same stimulus (Sharp et al, 2018;Wutz, Muschter, van Koningsbruggen, Weisz, & Melcher, 2016). This display comprised circles at seven locations out of a possible 16 (in a 4×4 grid of locations), and each circle was formed from two arc elements (see Fig.…”

“…Similarly, we have demonstrated that spatial cueing affects both the segregation and integration of rapid sequential stimuli, depending on which of these opposing temporal processes is required for successful target detection. This was achieved using a paradigm with two forms, whereby the visual stimulation remained the same while the task goals were manipulated (Sharp, Melcher, & Hickey, 2018). Again, the spatial cues in that paradigm could have engendered temporal orienting, since the interval between cue and stimulus onset was of a fixed duration.…”