The speeding of voluntary reaction by a warning signal

Abstract

Warning signals can shorten reaction time (RT) via either a top-down mechanism, temporal attention, or a bottom-up one, phasic arousal. The goal of this review article is to identify the locus at which these processes influence RT. Electrophysiological and behavioral evidence indicate that the chronometric locus for both modulatory effects lies mainly within a narrow window at the center of the stimulus-response interval. This interval presumably encompasses late perceptual, response selection, and early motor processes. Phasic arousal is theorized to reduce the threshold for response selection within a circuit involving the supramarginal gyrus. A blind-sight study indicates that conscious, cortical level processing is necessary for temporal attention, at least when the warning signal is visual.

Human Supplementary Motor Area Contribution to Predictive Motor Planning

“…F(6, 126) = 1.174, p = .324. The reduced reaction times at the earliest TMS delays are likely due to intersensory facilitation (Nickerson, 1974) or increased arousal from the auditory stimulation associated with the TMS (Bertelson & Tisseyre, 1969;Hackley, 2009). Such reaction time changes have been observed in previous TMS studies (e.g., Sawaki, Okita, Fujiwara, & Mizuno, 1999).…”

Response specific temporal expectancy: Evidence from a variable foreperiod paradigm

“…Other studies have located the effects of temporal expectancy in nonmotor aspects of cognitive processes, such as selection of the response category (Bausenhart, Rolke, Hackley, & Ulrich, 2006;Fischer, Plessow, & Kiesel, 2010;Hackley, 2009;Hackley & Valle-Inclán, 1998Los & Schut, 2008) or perception of target stimuli. With regard to the impact of expectancy on perception, Lange, Rösler, and Röder (2003) showed that EEG markers for perceptual attention were increased at the attended FP, relative to the unattended FP, when participants voluntarily scheduled their auditory attention to one of two FPs, in order to detect loudness-deviant tones (see also Lange & Heil, 2008;Lange, Krämer, & Röder, 2006).…”

Temporal cues derived from statistical patterns can overcome resource limitations in the attentional blink

“…This improvement appears to arise at multiple levels, including the motor system (Burle, Tandonnet, & Hasbroucq, 2010;Sanders, 1998), response selection mechanisms (Hackley, 2009;Los & Schut, 2008), and perception (Bausenhart, Rolke, & Ulrich, 2008;Correa et al, 2005;Rolke & Hofmann, 2007). A foreperiod arises in most conventional AB experiments because all trials contain two targets that are presented with equal frequency at each potential lag.…”