Isolating exogenous and endogenous modes of temporal attention.

Abstract

The differential allocation of information processing resources over time, here termed "temporal attention," may be achieved by relatively automatic "exogenous" or controlled "endogenous" mechanisms. Over 100 years of research has confounded these theoretically distinct dimensions of temporal attention. The current report seeks to ameliorate this oversight by novel application of 2 experimental methodologies. A scheme imported from the animal learning literature (Rescorla's "truly random control" procedure) was used to eliminate any temporal contingency between signals and targets. An auditory stimulus imported from the psychophysical literature (correlated vs. uncorrelated noise) was used to provide a salient signal that entailed no local or global change in intensity. Purely endogenous temporal attention (generated by a reliable signal-target contingency in the absence of a change in intensity) is characterized by robust improvements in speed and accuracy of responding. Purely exogenous temporal attention (generated by an intensity increase in the absence of contingency) is characterized by a brief period of faster responding. When exogenous temporal attention is elicited in the context of endogenous temporal attention, the decrease in response time that follows an intense signal is accompanied by a decrease in response accuracy.

The interaction between alerting and executive control: Dissociating phasic arousal and temporal expectancy

“…It is possible that within a block, the warning cue could prime the first foreperiod, allowing participants to learn an association between the warning cue and target appearance. An alternative interpretation of the results of Experiment 1 would be that although the overall expectancies were equal among the foreperiods, within a block a stronger temporal contingency occurred between the warning cue and the 100-to 500-ms foreperiods, as compared with the 900-ms foreperiod, which had the weakest contingency (see also Lawrence & Klein, 2013). Accordingly, the goal of Experiment 2 was to examine whether the results of Experiment 1 (i.e., larger congruency effect following a warning cue in earlier foreperiods) could be replicated even when there was a strong contingency between the warning cue and the 900-ms foreperiod, and a weak contingency between the warning cue and the 100-ms foreperiod.…”

Actively but not passively synchronized motor activity amplifies predictive timing

“…In the current work we investigated how AMS may determine the allocation of attentional resources for predictive timing. As temporally predictably presented stimuli attract attention (Lawrence and Klein, 2013), single events are processed faster and more accurately (Drake et al, 2000;Jones et al, 2002;Correa et al, 2006;Rohenkohl et al, 2011). Thus, temporal regularity facilitates the focusing of attention on anticipated points in time and hence predictive timing results in a more efficient allocation of cognitive resources.…”

Auditory attention strategy depends on target linguistic properties and spatial configuration

“…This modeling strategy is based on the formalizations in DeCarlo (1998) and Sheu et al (2008); cf. Lawrence and Klein (2013) for a recent study using a similar approach to modeling sensitivity in an audiovisual attention task.…”