Enhancing rhythmic temporal expectations: The dominance of auditory modality under spatial uncertainty.

To effectively process the most relevant information, the brain anticipates the optimal timing for allocating attentional resources. Behavior can be optimized by automatically aligning attention with external rhythmic structures, whether visual or auditory. Although the auditory modality is known for its efficacy in representing temporal information, the current body of research has not conclusively determined whether visual or auditory rhythmic presentations have a definitive advantage in entraining temporal attention. The present study directly examined the effects of auditory and visual rhythmic cues on the discrimination of visual targets in Experiment 1 and on auditory targets in Experiment 2. Additionally, the role of endogenous spatial attention was also considered. When and where the target was the most likely to occur were cued by unimodal (visual or auditory) and bimodal (audiovisual) signals. A sequence of salient events was employed to elicit rhythm-based temporal expectations and a symbolic predictive cue served to orient spatial attention. The results suggest a superiority of auditory over visual rhythms, irrespective of spatial attention, whether the spatial cue and rhythm converge or not (unimodal or bimodal), and regardless of the target modality (visual or auditory). These findings are discussed in terms of a modality-specific rhythmic orienting, while considering a single, supramodal system operating in a top-down manner for endogenous spatial attention.

Sleep-related attentional bias in insomnia: The mediating role of arousal.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Characterize the nature of attentional biases toward nocturnal and diurnal sleep-related stimuli in individuals with insomnia disorder. We investigated the contributing role of sleep-related attentional biases in insomnia severity and whether their effects on insomnia severity were mediated by arousal and valence levels of the presented stimuli. METHODS: Sixty-four individuals with insomnia disorder and 70 controls completed two Posner spatial cueing tasks including both nocturnal (alarm clocks) and diurnal (fatigue) pictorial stimuli associated with neutral cues. Arousal and valence of the sleep-related stimuli were assessed using a 5-point Likert type scale. RESULTS: Attention biases characterized by difficulty disengaging from and increased avoidance for daytime fatigue, and by difficulty disengaging from alarm clocks were observed in individuals with insomnia disorder compared to controls. On the whole sample, difficulty to disengage from diurnal and nocturnal sleep-related stimuli were related mostly to higher arousal rating of sleep-related stimuli and insomnia severity. Higher arousal rating for sleep-related stimuli mediates the relationship between difficulty disengaging and insomnia severity. LIMITATIONS: The cross-sectional nature of the study. CONCLUSIONS: We provide first initial evidence for an attentional bias characterized by on one side, avoidance for diurnal sleep-related stimuli and on other side, disengagement for both diurnal and nocturnal sleep-related stimuli in patients with insomnia. Disengagement difficulties for both diurnal and nocturnal sleep-related stimuli indirectly affected insomnia severity through arousal elicited by these stimuli. It appears important to develop and apply attentional bias modification training therapeutic interventions that can effectively reduce sleep-related arousal and attentional biases.

Attention to space and time: Independent or interactive systems? A narrative review.

While there is ample evidence for the ability to selectively attend to where in space and when in time a relevant event might occur, it remains poorly understood whether spatial and temporal attention operate independently or interactively to optimize behavior. To elucidate this important issue, we provide a narrative review of the literature investigating the relationship between the two. The studies were organized based on the attentional manipulation employed (endogenous vs. exogenous) and the type of task (detection vs. discrimination). Although the reviewed findings depict a complex scenario, three aspects appear particularly important in promoting independent or interactive effects of spatial and temporal attention: task demands, attentional manipulation, and their combination. Overall, the present review provides key insights into the relationship between spatial and temporal attention and identifies some critical gaps that need to be addressed by future research.

A transcranial magnetic stimulation study on the role of the left intraparietal sulcus in temporal orienting of attention.

Adaptive behavior requires the ability to orient attention to the moment in time at which a relevant event is likely to occur. Temporal orienting of attention has been consistently associated with activation of the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in prior fMRI studies. However, a direct test of its causal involvement in temporal orienting is still lacking. The present study tackled this issue by transiently perturbing left IPS activity with either online (Experiment 1) or offline (Experiment 2) transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In both experiments, participants performed a temporal orienting task, alternating between blocks in which a temporal cue predicted when a subsequent target would appear and blocks in which a neutral cue provided no information about target timing. In Experiment 1 we used an online TMS protocol, aiming to interfere specifically with cue-related temporal processes, whereas in Experiment 2 we employed an offline protocol whereby participants performed the temporal orienting task before and after receiving TMS. The right IPS and/or the vertex were stimulated as active control regions. While results replicated the canonical pattern of temporal orienting effects on reaction time, with faster responses for temporal than neutral trials, these effects were not modulated by TMS over the left IPS (as compared to the right IPS and/or vertex regions) regardless of the online or offline protocol used. Overall, these findings challenge the causal role of the left IPS in temporal orienting of attention inviting further research on its underlying neural substrates.

Spatio-Numerical Mapping in 3D.

The close link between number and space is illustrated by the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. The current research focuses on the flexibility of the SNARC across three dimensions. Shaki and Fischer (2018) pointed out that spatial attributes of stimuli and response effectors can favor an ad hoc spatial representation. In this paper, we aimed to broaden this perspective using two Go/NoGo experiments with digits being presented at two spatial locations while a central response was required. In Experiment 1, stimuli appeared either to the left or right (horizontal) and below or above fixation (vertical). In Experiment 2, as the monitor was laying down flat on the desk, stimuli appeared either to the left or right (horizontal) and either close or far from the observer (midsagittal). The results of Experiment 1 show significant effects for the two dimensions (horizontal, vertical), while in Experiment 2, we observe only a barely significant effect for the sagittal axis. We interpret these findings as showing (1) the importance of motor response spatialization in eliciting the SNAs and (2) the dominance of the vertical axis over the horizontal when the spatial component of the motor response is removed.

Exploring spatiotemporal interactions: On the superiority of time over space.

Space and time mutually influence each other such that space affects time estimation (space-on-time effect), and conversely (time-on-space effect). These reciprocal interferences suggest that space and time are intrinsically linked in the human mind. Yet, recent evidence for an asymmetrical advantage for space over time challenges the classical theoretical interpretation. In the present study, we tested whether the superiority of space over time in magnitude interference depends on the cognitive resources engaged in the spatial task. We conducted three experiments in which participants performed judgments on temporal intervals and spatial distances in separate blocks. In each trial, two dots were successively flashed at various locations, and participants were to judge whether the duration or distance between the dots was short or long. To manipulate cognitive demands in the spatial task, distances varied across experiments (highly discriminable for the non-demanding spatial task in Experiment 1 and scarcely discriminable for the demanding spatial task in Experiment 2). Importantly, this manipulation tended to enhance perceptual sensitivity (as indexed by Weber Ratios) but slowed down the decision process (as indexed by response times) in the demanding experiment. Our results provide evidence for robust space-on-time and time-on-space effects (Experiments 1 and 2). More crucially, the involvement of cognitive resources in a demanding spatial task causes a massive time-on-space effect: Spatial judgments are indeed more influenced by irrelevant temporal information than the reverse (Experiments 2 and 3). Overall, the flexibility of spatiotemporal interferences has direct theoretical implications and questions the origins of space-time interaction.

Attentional Orienting in Front and Rear Spaces in a Virtual Reality Discrimination Task.

Recent studies on covert attention suggested that the visual processing of information in front of us is different, depending on whether the information is present in front of us or if it is a reflection of information behind us (mirror information). This difference in processing suggests that we have different processes for directing our attention to objects in front of us (front space) or behind us (rear space). In this study, we investigated the effects of attentional orienting in front and rear space consecutive of visual or auditory endogenous cues. Twenty-one participants performed a modified version of the Posner paradigm in virtual reality during a spaceship discrimination task. An eye tracker integrated into the virtual reality headset was used to make sure that the participants did not move their eyes and used their covert attention. The results show that informative cues produced faster response times than non-informative cues but no impact on target identification was observed. In addition, we observed faster response times when the target occurred in front space rather than in rear space. These results are consistent with an orienting cognitive process differentiation in the front and rear spaces. Several explanations are discussed. No effect was found on subjects' eye movements, suggesting that participants did not use their overt attention to improve task performance.

The spatial representation of time can be flexibly oriented in the frontal or lateral planes from an early age.

The perception of time is strongly influenced by spatial context. The longer the distance of a stimulus' trajectory, the longer its duration is perceived to be. This effect has primarily been investigated in the lateral (left-right) axis despite the fact that spatial metaphors for time most commonly invoke the frontal (front-back) axis. We therefore explored how spatial distance, depth, and direction influenced perceived duration of stimuli moving in the frontal or lateral axes. Moreover, we compared the developmental trajectories of frontal versus lateral representations of time by testing children (5, 7, or 10 years old) and adults. Results showed that perceived duration of the interval between 2 consecutive stimuli in a temporal bisection task was biased by distance in the frontal, as well as lateral, plane across all age groups. Even the mere impression of distance in depth (Ponzo illusion), was sufficient to produce these effects. These findings indicate that the spatial representation of time can be oriented flexibly in either frontal or lateral planes from the age of 5 years and even precedes the development of explicit timing mechanisms. Motion direction in the frontal plane (looming/receding) had little effect on perceived duration in adults, though children temporally underestimated looming stimuli, possibly due to attentional mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record

SMA Selectively Codes the Active Accumulation of Temporal, Not Spatial, Magnitude.

Estimating duration depends on the sequential integration (accumulation) of temporal information in working memory. Using fMRI, we directly compared the accumulation of information in temporal versus spatial domains. Participants estimated either the duration or distance of the dynamic trajectory of a moving dot or, in a control condition, a static line stimulus. Comparing the duration versus distance of static lines activated an extensive cortico-striatal network. By contrast, comparing the duration versus distance of dynamic trajectories, both of which required sequential integration of information, activated SMA alone. Indeed, activity in SMA, as well as right inferior occipital cortex, increased parametrically as a function of stimulus duration and also correlated with individual differences in the propensity to overestimate stimulus duration. By contrast, activity in primary visual cortex increased parametrically as a function of stimulus distance. Crucially, a direct comparison of the parametric responses to duration versus distance revealed that activity in SMA increased incrementally as a function of stimulus duration but not as a function of stimulus distance. Collectively, our results indicate that SMA responds to the active accumulation of information selectively in the temporal domain.

Functional reorganization of the attentional networks in low-grade glioma patients: a longitudinal study.

Right brain damage often provokes deficits of visuospatial attention. Although the spatial attention networks have been widely investigated in stroke patients as well as in the healthy brain, little is known about the impact of slow growing lesions in the right hemisphere. We here present a longitudinal study of 20 patients who have been undergoing awake brain surgery with per-operative line bisection testing. Our aim was to investigate the impact of tumour presence and of tumour resection on the functional (re)organization of the attention networks. We assessed patients' performance on lateralized target detection, visual exploration and line bisection before surgery, and in the acute and post-acute operative phases after surgery. Clear evidence for transient neglect signs was observed in the acute post-operative phase, although full recovery had invariably occurred in all patients. The resection of the right angular gyrus was associated with transient neglect-like symptoms in all tasks, whereas resection of more anterior regions correlated with transient deficits only in visual exploration or detection (but not in line bisection). The attentional networks showed substantial functional recovery. This impressive pattern of recovery is discussed in terms of involvement of the contralateral left hemisphere and of preservation of long-range white matter pathways within the right hemisphere.

Asymmetric interhemispheric excitability evidenced by event-related potential amplitude patterns after "wide-awake surgery" of brain tumours.

Slow-growing, infiltrative brain tumours may modify the electrophysiological balance between the two hemispheres. To determine whether and how asymmetry in interhemispheric excitability might occur following "wide-awake surgery" for this type of tumour, we recorded electroencephalograms during a simple visuo-manual reaction time paradigm performed by five patients between 3 and 12 months after surgery. Interhemispheric excitability asymmetries were computed by comparing the amplitudes of event-related potentials (ERPs) in the injured hemisphere to those in the healthy hemisphere. For the two patients with the smallest lesions (7.1 and 11.5 cm(3), respectively), increased excitability within the ipsilesional hemisphere was evidenced by characteristics increases in the ERP amplitude at several sites, with few occurrences in the contralesional hemisphere. For smaller lesions (and under certain experimental conditions), cortical excitability in the injured hemisphere may increase in order to maintain local compensation. In addition, we observed and increased excitability in the contralesional frontal homologue for one patient who underwent an extensive resection. Post-operative monitoring of interhemispheric asymmetries in ERP amplitudes is of value for determining task constraints inducing electrophysiological imbalance and guiding rehabilitation.

Additions are biased by operands: evidence from repeated versus different operands.

Recent evidence led to the conclusion that addition problems are biased towards overestimation, regardless of whether information is conveyed by symbolic or non-symbolic stimuli (the Operational Momentum effect). The present study focuses on the role of operands in the overestimation of addition problems. Based on the tie effect, and on recent evidence that the nature of operands biases addition problems towards an underestimation when operands are repeated, but towards an overestimation when different, we aim here to further elucidate the contribution of operands to addition problems. Experiment 1 replicates the underestimation of repeated-operand additions and overestimation of different-operand additions, with large numbers (around 50), and explores whether these effects also apply to small operand additions (around 10). Experiment 2 further explores the overestimation of different-operand additions by investigating the roles of operand order and numerical distance between operands. The results show that both factors have an impact on the overestimation size, but are not crucial for overestimation to occur. The results are discussed in terms of arithmetic strategies, spatial organization of numbers and magnitude representation.

Cue and target processing modulate the onset of inhibition of return.

Inhibition of return (IOR) is modulated by task set and appears later in discrimination tasks than in detection tasks. Several hypotheses have been suggested to account for this difference. We tested three of these hypotheses in two experiments by examining the influence of cue and target level of processing on the onset of IOR. In the first experiment, participants were required to respond to both the cue and target. The pattern of results showed that deeper processing of the cue or target advanced the onset of IOR. In the second experiment, participants were not required to respond to the cue and a reverse pattern of results emerged, which replicated the general findings in cuing tasks. We conclude that in more-demanding tasks, an additional process slows down the processing of a nonpredictive cue in order to enhance the processing of the target.

Dissecting the component deficits of perceptual imbalance in visual neglect: evidence from horizontal-vertical length comparisons.

INTRODUCTION: Signs of left unilateral neglect often occur after damage to the right hemisphere and entail a left-right imbalance in stimulus processing. Typically, neglect patients deviate rightward when bisecting lines. An underestimation of the left portion of the line and/or a right overestimation could explain this effect. METHODS: Here we dissected their respective contribution by asking participants to compare a vertical segment to a horizontal segment, either on the left or on the right. We also tested whether neglect patients exhibited the symmetry law, whereby normal participants underestimate symmetrically bisected lines as compared to asymmetrically bisected lines. RESULTS: Controls and patients underestimated symmetric figures. Depending on the degree of left-right horizontal competition, neglect patients underestimated left-sided stimuli or overestimated right-sided stimuli. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that two independent deficits contribute to neglect signs: a deficit in attentional orienting to the left, which can be worsened by left hemianopia, perhaps depending on impaired functioning of right-hemisphere attentional networks, and a tendency for attention to be captured by right-sided stimuli, possibly resulting from the activity of an isolated left hemisphere. Finally, the symmetry law was preserved in neglect patients, and thus appears to be driven by pre-attentive mechanisms.

Is 26 + 26 smaller than 24 + 28? Estimating the approximate magnitude of repeated versus different numbers.

It has recently been suggested that regardless of the dimension at hand (i.e., numerosity, length, time), similar operational mechanisms are involved in the comparison process based on approximate magnitude representation. One piece of evidence for this hypothesis lies in the presence of similar behavioral effects for any comparison (i.e., the distance effect). In the case of length comparison, the comparison process can be biased by summation toward either an underestimation or an overestimation: The sum of equal-size stimuli is underestimated, whereas the sum of different-size stimuli is overestimated. Relying on the hypothesis that similar operational mechanisms underlie the comparison process of any magnitude, we aim at extending these findings to another magnitude dimension. A number comparison task with digit numbers was used in the two experiments reported presently. The objective was to investigate whether summation also biases magnitude representation of numerical and symbolic information. The results provided evidence that the summation bias can also apply to numerical magnitude comparison, since the sum of repeated numbers (26 + 26) was underestimated whereas the sum of different numbers (24 + 28) was overestimated. We propose that these effects could be accounted for by a heuristic linking cognitive effort and magnitude estimation.

Assessing the weights of visual neglect: a new approach to dissociate defective symptoms from productive phenomena in length estimation.

Right hemisphere damage often provokes signs of visual neglect, characterized by a prominent left-right imbalance in information processing. Neglect patients are biased towards right-sided objects and ignore left-sided events. Left-right imbalance may not only result from left neglect but also from right attraction, which have been considered as, respectively, defective and productive phenomena in neglect patients. However, the relative contributions of these two mechanisms to the final left-right imbalance remain uncertain. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we were able to separately test the contribution of left neglect and right attraction to neglect behavior. We used horizontal and vertical lines implemented in L shapes in a line extension task. The use of L shapes oriented either to the left or to the right made it possible to measure the left bias by comparing the length of a left-sided horizontal line to that of a centered vertical line, and to measure the right bias by comparing a centered vertical to a rightwards horizontal line. Our results showed that, in this experimental set, the left-right discrepancy is supported more by left neglect than by right attraction, with important implications about the role of left-right competition on the deployment of left neglect and right attraction.

Length perception of horizontal and vertical bisected lines.

In an inverted T figure, the vertical line is largely overestimated (Avery and Day in J Exp Psychol 81:376-380, 1969). This vertical overestimation results from the vertical and bisection biases. Line orientation biases length perception in the sense that the vertical line of a L shape is perceived as longer than the horizontal line of the same physical length. In the inverted T figure, the vertical line is overestimated because of its orientation but also because the horizontal line is bisected. In the current study, we used various two-line configurations to investigate the role of bisection a/symmetry in line length perception and its interaction with the vertical bias. Experiment 1 showed that symmetry and asymmetry of bisection have different consequences on line length perception, as previously shown by Wolfe et al. (Percept Psychophys 67:967-979, 2005). Experiments 2 focused on the relation between the vertical and bisection biases by manipulating orthogonally line orientation and bisection a/symmetry. The results provided evidence that bisection can prevent the manifestation of the vertical bias, so that when the two lines are bisected, vertical lines are not anymore overestimated. These results are discussed in the light of recent findings claiming that saccades could play an essential role in length perception.

The relevance of symmetry in line length perception.

The length of a whole line is overestimated in comparison to the sum of its parts (Künnapas, 1955 Journal of Experimental Psychology 49 134-140). This has been considered to be true for many years, although recent studies have demonstrated that it is not always so. The perception of the length of a whole line is highly dependent on the configuration of its two parts. More precisely, whereas a whole line is perceived as longer than the sum of symmetrically bisected line parts, this overestimation decreases when compared to the sum of the lengths of asymmetrically bisected line parts. Furthermore, the extent of overestimation depends on the degree of asymmetry, so that when the two parts are greatly asymmetric in length, the whole is no longer overestimated (Wolfe et al, 2005 Perception & Psychophysics 67 967-979). Here, two experiments are reported in which a vertical/horizontal line length comparison task was used to investigate how line bisection affects length estimation. The results give rise to a new general principle characterising the mechanisms of visual perception: the sum of the lengths of two asymmetrically bisected parts is perceived as greater than that of two symmetrically bisected parts. Also bisection plays a critical role in length perception by preventing vertical bias.

Endogenous attention and illusory line motion depend on task set.

Task set has been shown to determine some important cognitive operations like conscious perception [Rafal, R. D., Ward, R., & Danziger, S. (2006). Selection for action and selection for awareness: Evidence from hemispatial neglect. Brain Research, 1080(1), 2-8], and the exogenous orienting of spatial attention [Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Johnston, J. C. (1992). Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18(4), 1030-1044; Lupiáñez, J., Ruz, M., Funes, M. J., & Milliken, B. (2007). The manifestation of attentional capture: Facilitation or IOR depending on task demands. Psychological Research, 71(1), 77-91]. In the present study we investigate whether endogenous attention would also be task-dependent. We use an illusion of movement, the illusory line motion [Hikosaka, O., Miyauchi, S., & Shimojo, S. (1993). Focal visual attention produces illusory temporal order and motion sensation. Vision Research, 33(9), 1219-1240] to explore this question. Our results revealed that endogenously attending to detect the appearance of a target produce different consequences in modulating the illusion of movement than endogenously attending to discriminate one of its features. We suggest that endogenous attention is implemented differently depending on the task at hand, producing different effects on perceptual integration.