Unifying temporal preparation: The temporal preparation task (TEP-Task)

Abstract

The dynamic nature of our environment enables us to anticipate the onset of relevant events, which in turns speeds up our reactions to them. Temporal preparation can be measured in the laboratory through various tasks, including foreperiod tasks, temporal orienting tasks, and rhythmic tasks. However, the literature currently lacks a unified task to measure the most common temporal preparation effects (i.e., foreperiod, sequential, temporal orienting, and rhythmic effects) in a single session. The main goal of the present study was to fill this gap by devising a novel temporal preparation task – the TEP-Task – to evaluate temporal preparation effects within a single 35-min testing session. Our study with healthy adults provides reliable estimates of temporal preparation effects and further suggests that these effects are uncorrelated. Besides its utility in investigating temporal preparation in a single session, the TEP-Task may also serve for future developmental and clinical studies.