Purpose-dependent consequences of temporal expectations serving perception and action

Freek van Ede*, Gustavo Rohenkohl, Ian Gould, Anna C. Nobre

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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 behavior 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 lateralization of oscillatory brain activity in a modality- and frequency-specific manner. By relating these brain states to behavior, we finally reveal how the behavioral relevance of such anticipatory brain states is similarly purpose dependent.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7877-7886
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Neuroscience
Volume40
Issue number41
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Oct 2020

Funding

This research was funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship from the European Commission (ACCESS2WM) to F.v.E., a Wellcome Trust Project Grant (089903) and Senior Investigator Award (104571/Z/ 14/Z), and a James S. McDonnell Foundation Understanding Human Cognition Collaborative Award (220020448) to A.C.N.; and by the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. The Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust (Grant 203139/Z/16/Z). The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis; decision to publish; or preparation of the manuscript. We thank Clare Palmer, Jessica Gaunt, and Simone Heideman for help with data handling and data collection.

FundersFunder number
National Institute for Health Research Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre203139/Z/16/Z
James S. McDonnell Foundation220020448
James S. McDonnell Foundation
Wellcome Trust089903, 104571/Z/ 14/Z
Wellcome Trust
H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
European CommissionACCESS2WM
European Commission

    Keywords

    • Alpha oscillations
    • Attention
    • Behavioral performance
    • Beta oscillations
    • Task-dependent
    • Temporal expectation

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