Temporal attention boosts perceptual effects of spatial attention and feature-based attention

Seibold, Verena C.; Stepper, Madeleine Y.; Rolke, Bettina

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105570

Cited by 20 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…These findings provided, again, evidence for a strong synergistic interaction between temporal and spatial expectations in a discrimination task. Consistently, recent evidence by Seibold et al, (2020) showed that temporal attention boosts the effect of spatial attention on early ERP components in a visual search task. This evidence of a tight link between spatial attention and cue-based temporal expectation led Nobre and van Ede (2018) to propose their spatiotemporal neurophysiological model, which can account for these findings.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…In that study, temporal expectations were manipulated implicitly, whereas spatial attention was manipulated explicitly using symbolic attentional cues. Findings showed no spatiotemporal interaction, and therefore it was suggested that this interaction occurs only when attention is manipulated similarly in both modalities (Seibold et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to this view, temporal and spatial expectations are tightly linked, as temporal expectation is bound to be evident only within the locus of spatial attention: in order to gain from knowing when a target will occur, one has to know where it would occur. However, evidence for this spatiotemporal framework is limited to studies that manipulated cue-based temporal expectation (Doherty et al, 2005; Rohenkohl et al, 2014; Seibold et al, 2020). It remains unknown whether the same spatiotemporal mechanism accounts for temporal expectation based on other sources of regularities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The spatiotemporal link of temporal expectations: contextual temporal expectation is independent of spatial attention

Tal

Yuval-Greenberg

2021

Preprint

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Temporal expectation is the ability to construct predictions regarding the timing of events, based on previously-experienced temporal regularities of different types. For example, cue-based expectations are constructed when a cue validly indicates when a target is expected to occur. However, in the absence of such cues, expectations can be constructed based on contextual temporal information, including the event's hazard-rate function - its moment-by-moment conditional probability that changes over time; and prior experiences, which provide probabilistic information regarding the event's predicted timing (sequential effects). It was previously suggested that cue-based temporal expectation is exerted via synchronization of spatially-specific neural activity at a target's predictable time, within receptive fields corresponding to the target's expected location. Here, we tested if the same theoretical model holds for contextual temporal effects. Participants (n = 40) performed a speeded spatial-cueing detection task, with two-thirds valid spatial cues. The target's hazard-rate function was modulated by varying the foreperiod - the interval between the spatial cue and the target - among trials, and was manipulated between groups by changing the interval distribution. Reaction times were analyzed using both frequentist and Bayesian generalized linear mixed models, accounting for hazard and sequential effects. Results showed that the effects of contextual temporal structures on reaction times were independent of spatial attention. This suggests that the spatiotemporal mechanisms, thought to account for cue-based expectation, cannot explain other sources of temporal expectations. We conclude that expectations based on contextual structures have different characteristics than cue-based temporal expectation, suggesting reliance on distinct neural mechanisms.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The spatiotemporal link of temporal expectations: contextual temporal expectation is independent of spatial attention

Tal

Yuval-Greenberg

2021

Preprint

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“…Once a stimulus appears in the visual field, a retinotopically mapped signal from the retina reaches the visual cortex within approximately 50-80 ms, as indicated by successive early eventrelated potential components originating from primary (C1; Di Russo, Martínez, Sereno, Pitzalis, & Hillyard, 2002) and ventral extrastriate visual cortex (P1; Luck, Chelazzi, Hillyard, & Desimone, 1997). While the C1 has often been found to be unaffected by attentional manipulations (but see Slotnick, 2018), the subsequent P1 is enhanced when a visual stimulus appears in an attended location, an expected moment in time, or matches a target-defining feature Seibold, Stepper, & Rolke, 2020;Warren, Yacoub, & Ghose, 2014;Zhang & Luck, 2009). As the P1 is assumed to be generated during the initial feedforward sweep of visual processing (Zhang & Luck, 2009), these findings show that spatial, temporal, and feature-based attention can facilitate the neural processing during this early phase (as illustrated in Figure 1F, left panel), presumably due to a sustained baseline shift in neural activity that is triggered prior to stimulus onset, during attentional preparation.…”

Section: Underlying Neural Mechanism: Recurrent Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The diachronic account of attentional selectivity

Zivony¹,

Eimer²

2021

Preprint

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Many models of attention assume that attentional selection takes place at a specific moment in time which demarcates the critical transition from pre-attentive to attentive processing of sensory input. We argue that this intuitively appealing “synchronic” account is not only inaccurate, but has led to substantial conceptual confusion. As an alternative, we offer a “diachronic” framework that describes attentional selectivity as a process that unfolds over time. Key to this view is the concept of attentional episodes, brief periods of intense attentional amplification of sensory representations that regulate access to working memory and response-related processes. We describe how attentional episodes are linked to earlier attentional mechanisms and to recurrent processing at the neural level. We review studies that establish the existence of attentional episodes, delineate the factors that determine if and when they are triggered, and discuss the costs associated with processing multiple events within a single episode. Finally, we argue that this framework offers new solutions to old problems in attention research that have never been resolved. It can provide a unified and conceptually coherent account of the network of cognitive and neural processes that produce the goal-directed selectivity in perceptual processing that is commonly referred to as “attention”.

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