Purpose-Dependent Consequences of Temporal Expectations Serving Perception and Action

Abstract

Temporal expectations enable anticipatory brain states that prepare us for upcoming perception and action. We investigated the purpose-dependent nature and consequences of cued temporal expectations on brain and behaviour in male and female human volunteers, using two matched visual-motor tasks that stressed either response speed or visual accuracy. We show that the consequences of temporal expectations are fundamentally purpose dependent. Temporal expectations predominantly affected response times when visual demands were low and speed was more important, but perceptual accuracy when visual demands were more challenging. Using Magnetoencephalography, we further show how temporal expectations latch onto anticipatory neural states associated with concurrent spatial expectations-modulating task-specific anticipatory neural lateralisation of oscillatory brain activity in a modality-and frequency-specific manner. By relating these brain states to behaviour, we finally reveal how the behavioural relevance of such anticipatory brain states is similarly purpose dependent. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT | Knowing when events may occur helps prepare neural activity for upcoming perception and action. It is becoming increasingly clear that distinct sources of temporal expectations may facilitate performance via distinct mechanisms. Another relevant dimension to consider regards the distinct purposes that temporal expectations may serve. Here, we demonstrate that the consequences of temporal expectations on neurophysiological brain activity and behaviour are fundamentally purpose dependent, and show how temporal expectations interact with task-relevant neural states in a modality-and frequency-specific manner. This brings the important insight that the ways in which temporal expectations influence brain and behaviour-and how brain activity is related to behaviour-are not fixed properties but rather depend on the task at hand.

Orienting auditory attention in time: Lateralized alpha power reflects spatio-temporal filtering

“…While lateralized power of beta oscillations (15–30 Hz) was sensitive to the type of hazard rate, the effect was weaker and not statistically significant in the alpha band. Related to this, a recent study found that temporal expectations modulate lateralized oscillatory power in a frequency- and modality-specific way ( van Ede et al., 2020 ). It is at present unclear whether and under which circumstances the power of lateralized alpha oscillations signifies the distribution of auditory attention in time.…”

Target enhancement or distractor suppression? Functionally distinct alpha oscillations form the basis of attention

“…The time course of the alpha power response has been shown to exhibit relatively slow modulations with alternating states of higher versus lower alpha power, which align with temporal expectations (e.g. Herbst & Obleser, 2017;Rohenkohl & Nobre, 2011;van Ede et al, 2020;Wilsch et al, 2020), with the presentation rate of sensory stimuli (e.g. Wilson & Foxe, 2020;Wöstmann et al, 2016), and with time-varying goals to attend versus ignore external stimuli (e.g.…”

The human cerebellum is essential for modulating perceptual sensitivity based on temporal expectations

“…These findings implicate the cerebellum in temporal preparation, but are agnostic to whether it has a role in attentional modulation of perceptual systems, in motor preparation, or in both. This is because in speeded detection tasks, reaction time benefits from temporal cues could result from adjustment of perceptual sensitivity and/or of motor preparation 3,[15][16][17] . Given the well documented role of the cerebellum in precisely timed movement 18,19 , the impairments we observed in the CD group may merely reflect a novel manifestation of the cerebellar role in the temporal control of motor preparation 20 .…”