Behavioural Dissociation between Exogenous and Endogenous Temporal Orienting of Attention

BACKGROUND: In the current study we compared the effects of temporal orienting of attention based on predictions carried by the intrinsic temporal structure of events (rhythm) and by instructive symbolic cues; and tested the degree of cognitive, strategic control that could be exerted over each type of temporal expectation. The experiments tested whether the distinction between exogenous and endogenous orienting made in spatial attention may extend to the temporal domain. TASK DESIGN AND MAIN RESULTS: In this task, a ball moved across the screen in discrete steps and disappeared temporarily under an occluding band. Participants were required to make a perceptual discrimination on the target upon its reappearance. The regularity of the speed (rhythmic cue) or colour (symbolic cue) of the moving stimulus could predict the exact time at which a target would reappear after a brief occlusion (valid trials) or provide no temporal information (neutral trials). The predictive nature of rhythmic and symbolic cues was manipulated factorially in a symmetrical and orthogonal fashion. To test for the effects of strategic control over temporal orienting based on rhythmic or symbolic cues, participants were instructed either to "attend-to-speed" (rhythm) or "attend-to-colour". Our results indicated that both rhythmic and symbolic (colour) cues speeded reaction times in an independent fashion. However, whilst the rhythmic cueing effects were impervious to instruction, the effects of symbolic cues were contingent on the instruction to attend to colour. FINAL CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results provide evidence for the existence of qualitatively separable types of temporal orienting of attention, akin to exogenous and endogenous mechanisms

A transcranial magnetic stimulation study on the role of the left intraparietal sulcus in temporal orienting of attention

likely to occur. Temporal orienting of attention has been consistently associated with activation of the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in prior fMRI studies. However, a direct test of its causal involvement in temporal orienting is still lacking. The present study tackled this issue by transiently perturbing left IPS activity with either online (Experiment 1) or offline (Experiment 2) transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In both experiments, participants performed a temporal orienting task, alternating between blocks in which a temporal cue predicted when a subsequent target would appear and blocks in which a neutral cue provided no information about target timing. In Experiment 1 we used an online TMS protocol, aiming to interfere specifically with cue-related temporal processes, whereas in Experiment 2 we employed an offline protocol whereby participants performed the temporal orienting task before and after receiving TMS. The right IPS and/or the vertex were stimulated as active control regions. While results replicated the canonical pattern of temporal orienting effects on reaction time, with faster responses for temporal than neutral trials, these effects were not modulated by TMS over the left IPS (as compared to the right IPS and/or vertex regions) regardless of the online or offline protocol used. Overall, these findings challenge the causal role of the left IPS in temporal orienting of attention inviting further research on its underlying neural substratesFrench National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-18-CE28-0009-01MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 PID2021- 128696NA-I00"ERDF A way of making Europe"Spanish GovernmentEuropean Union Next GenerationMinistry of Economy, Knowledge, EnterpriseUniversities of AndalusiaMinistry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN) Spanish Government PSI2017-88136EDER-Junta de AndaluciaUniversidad de Granada/CBU

Neural Substrates of Mounting Temporal Expectation

A cognitive and neuroanatomical perspective on how timing and expectation are represented in the human brain

Modulation of attention by noradrenergic alpha2-agents varies according to arousal level

International audienc

Neural correlates of attention and arousal: insights from electrophysiology, functional neuroimaging and psychopharmacology

International audienc

Implicit, Predictive Timing Draws upon the Same Scalar Representation of Time as Explicit Timing

International audienc

Increasing conditional probabilities over time speed responses.

<p>(A) If an event is likely to occur after one of four possible delays with equal probability, then the conditional probability that the event will occur at one of these delays evolves over time. For example, after a delay of 1 s, the probability of the event occurring is 1 in 4 (i.e., 0.25). If it does not occur at 1 s, then there are three possible delays left, now giving a 1 in 3 (i.e., 0.33) chance of occurring at the next delay. But, if it does not occur after 2 s either, there is now a 1 in 2 (i.e., 0.50) chance of it occurring at the next delay. Finally, if it has still not occurred by 3 s, then the subject can be sure that it must certainly occur (i.e., 1.0) at the final (4 s) delay. In other words, the objective probability of event occurrence combines with the predictive power of time's arrow to produce changing conditional probabilities over time. (B) As the time (or “foreperiod”) before an event occurs gets longer, so responses to that event get faster. The speeding of reaction time typically parallels increasing conditional probabilities over time, reflecting a state of increased preparedness to respond with passing time.</p

Temporal expectation in the brain.

<p>Fixed temporal expectations of when a visual event is likely to occur are underpinned by activity in left premotor and parietal areas <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000166#pbio.1000166-Coull1" target="_blank">[7]</a>,<a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000166#pbio.1000166-Sakai1" target="_blank">[26]</a>. However, if the event has still not appeared by the expected delay, the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000166#pbio.1000166-Coull2" target="_blank">[21]</a>–<a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000166#pbio.1000166-Vallesi4" target="_blank">[25]</a> makes use of neural indices of elapsed time (represented in functionally specialized regions of the brain e.g., in visual cortex for visual events <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000166#pbio.1000166-Ghose1" target="_blank">[15]</a>) to update current temporal expectations (i.e., the hazard function). Once the event occurs, an integrated sum of the probability that the event would have occurred at that time (i.e., the cumulative hazard function) is represented by the magnitude of activity in SMA and right STG <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000166#pbio.1000166-Cui1" target="_blank">[14]</a>, and allows expectations about the onset time of future events to be updated.</p