Temporal preparation facilitates perceptual identification of letters

Abstract

Recent evidence has suggested that perceptual processing of single stimulus features improves when participants are temporally prepared for the occurrence of the stimuli. This study was conducted to investigate whether the benefit of temporal preparation generalizes to perceptual identification of more complex stimuli, such as letters. In three experiments, participants discriminated masked letters under high-and low-temporal-preparation conditions. Visual discrimination performance in all experiments improved when the participants were temporally prepared. Therefore, the present results support the notion that perception benefits from temporal preparation not only at the feature level, but also at subsequent levels at which feature information is integrated.

Response specific temporal expectancy: Evidence from a variable foreperiod paradigm

“…However, one might object to the idea that specific temporal expectancy could indeed affect perception, but only the perceptual processing of simple stimulus features. Despite the fact that general temporal expectancy effects were observed for basic visual feature processing (Bueti, Bahrami, Walsh, & Rees, 2010;Rolke & Hofmann, 2007;Seifried et al, 2010) and for complex visual features (Correa, Cappucci, Nobre, & Lupiáñez, 2010a;Correa, Lupiáñez, Madrid, & Tudela, 2006a;Hackley, Schankin, Wohlschlaeger, & Wascher, 2007;Rolke, 2008), specific temporal expectancy might be restricted to perceptual processing of simple stimulus features.…”

“…In sum, we found evidence for specific temporal expectancy only when responses were correlated with FPs (irrespective of whether the responses were assigned to simple stimulus We conclude from these results that specific temporal expectancy is mainly expectancy for nonperceptual cognitive events. While perception can benefit from general temporal expectancy (Correa et al, 2005;Lange, 2009;Rimmele, Jolsvai, & Sussman, 2010;Rolke, 2008), in the sense of facilitated perceptual processing at a certain point in time, this benefit cannot be specific for a certain stimulus. This finding is particularly remarkable in relation to Kingstone's (1992) study, which showed that general event expectancy and general temporal expectancy can simultaneously facilitate perceptual processing.…”

Temporal Predictability Facilitates Action, Not Perception

“…Note, however, that we do not mean to exclude any specific temporal expectancy for cognitive processes other than late, effectorspecific response processing. In other contexts, for instance, in which target stimuli are difficult to discriminate, specific temporal expectancy might also facilitate perception (for examples of general temporal expectancy for stimuli, see Bueti, Bahrami, Walsh, & Rees, 2010;Ghose & Maunsell, 2002;Kingstone, 1992;Lange, Rösler, & Röder, 2003;Rolke, 2008;Seibold, Bausenhart, Rolke, & Ulrich, 2011).…”

Temporal tuning and attentional gating: Two distinct attentional mechanisms on the perception of rapid serial visual events

“…Directly relevant to the AA, Rolke and Hofmann (2007) linked foreperiod preparation to increased perceptual processing. Rolke (2008) also has shown that foreperiod effects can improve the perception of briefly presented (and masked) letters. And Bausenhart, Rolke, and Ulrich (2008) showed that foreperiod preparation actually improves the temporal resolution of visual perception (in the context of temporal order judgment tasks).…”