Endogenous temporal orienting of attention in detection and discrimination tasks

Percept Psychophys. 2004 Feb;66(2):264-78. doi: 10.3758/bf03194878.

Abstract

Endogenous temporal-orienting effects were studied using a cuing paradigm in which the cue indicated the time interval during which the target was most likely to appear. Temporal-orienting effects were defined by lower reaction times (RTs) when there was a match between the temporal expectancy for a target (early or late) and the time interval during which the target actually appeared than when they mismatched. Temporal-orienting effects were found for both early and late expectancies with a detection task in Experiment 1. However, catch trials were decisive in whether temporal-orienting effects were observed in the early-expectancy condition. No temporal-orienting effects were found in the discrimination task. In Experiments 2A and 2B, temporal-orienting effects were observed in the discrimination task; however, they were larger when temporal expectancy was manipulated between blocks, rather than within blocks.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Attention*
  • Cues
  • Discrimination, Psychological*
  • Humans
  • Reaction Time
  • Time Perception*
  • Visual Perception