Attentional cues affect accuracy and reaction time via different cognitive and neural processes

We investigated whether symbolic endogenous attentional cues affect perceptual accuracy and reaction time (RT) via different cognitive and neural processes. We recorded magnetoencephalography in 19humans while they performed acued somatosensory discrimination task in which the cue-target interval was varied between 0 and 1000 ms. Comparing behavioral and neural measures, we show that (1) attentional cueing affects accuracy and RT with different time courses and (2) the time course of our neural measure (anticipatory suppression of neuronal oscillations in stimulus-receiving sensory cortex) only accounts for the accuracy time course. A model is proposed in which the effecton accuracy is explained by a single process (preparatory excitability increaseinsensorycortex), where as the effect on RT is explained by an additional process that is sensitive tocue-target compatibility (post-target comparison between expected and actual stimulus location). These data provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying behavioral consequences of attentional cueing.