Hold the future,let the past go: Attention prefers the features of future targets

Previous studies have shown that attention can be captured by task-irrelevant distractors under the guidance of attentional control settings. However, it is unknown whether people can establish an attentional control setting (ACS) for a sequence of distinct events. The present study tested that question by asking observers to expect a sequence of two colored targets in a specific order. The results show that irrelevant distractors that matched either the color of the first expected target or that of the second target captured attention. Thus observers are unable to temporarily suppress the color of the future target in their ACS. However, the temporal order of targets is still useful for guiding attention: Observers were able to abandon the color of the first target and maintain an ACS for the second one as long as there was a sufficient time interval between the two targets.     

Functional dissociations in temporal preparation: Evidence from dual-task performance

Implicit preparation over time is a complex cognitive capacity important to optimize behavioral responses to a target occurring after a temporal interval, the so-called foreperiod (FP). If the FP occurs randomly and with the same a priori probability, shorter response times are usually observed with longer FPs than with shorter ones (FP effect). Moreover, responses are slower when the preceding FP was longer than the current one (sequential effects). It is still a matter of debate how different processes influence these temporal preparation phenomena. The present study used a dual-task procedure to understand how different processes, along the automatic-controlled continuum, may contribute to these temporal preparation phenomena. Dual-task demands were manipulated in two experiments using a subtraction task during the FP. This secondary task was administered in blocks (Experiment 1) or was embedded together with a baseline single-task in the same experimental session (Experiment 2). The results consistently showed that the size of the FP effect, but not that of sequential effects, is sensitive to dual-task manipulations. This functional dissociation unveils the multi-faceted nature of implicit temporal preparation: while the FP effect is due to a controlled, resource-consuming preparatory mechanism, a more automatic mechanism underlies sequential effects.     

Temporal texture of associative encoding modulates recall processes

Binding aspects of an experience that are distributed over time is an important element of episodic memory. In the current study, we examined how the temporal complexity of an experience may govern the processes required for its retrieval. We recorded event-related potentials during episodic cued recall following pair associate learning of concurrently and sequentially presented object-picture pairs. Cued recall success effects over anterior and posterior areas were apparent in several time windows. In anterior locations, these recall success effects were similar for concurrently and sequentially encoded pairs. However, in posterior sites clustered over parietal scalp the effect was larger for the retrieval of sequentially encoded pairs. We suggest that anterior aspects of the mid-latency recall success effects may reflect working-with-memory operations or direct access recall processes, while more posterior aspects reflect recollective processes which are required for retrieval of episodes of greater temporal complexity.     

Domain dimensionality and temporality of outcome expectancy for physical activity among middle-aged and older Chinese adults: A latent profile analysis

ObjectivesUsing a person-centered approach, this study aimed to identify the profiles of outcome expectancy for physical activity among middle-aged and older Chinese adults. Profiles were defined by two aspects of outcome expectancy including domain dimensionality and temporality, given the emphasis on social connectedness and the shortened future-time perception in this population.DesignCross-sectional survey design.MethodsParticipants included 300 Chinese adults aged 50 years or above, recruited in Hong Kong. Participants were asked to indicate their outcome expectancy for physical activity in physical, social and self-evaluative domains, rate the immediacy of each outcome expectancy item, and then report their physical activity for the past week. A latent class analysis was used to identify the number of profiles and profile characteristics, and to examine the predictors of the profile memberships and effects of the memberships on physical activity.ResultsResults suggested four profiles, including low, moderate, delayed-high and immediate-high expectancy classes. Temporality, rather than domain dimensionality, was essential in defining the profiles. Interdependent self-construal and future-time perception were predictive of the profile memberships. People with immediate-high expectancy were more physically active than those in other expectancy classes.ConclusionsThis study provided supporting evidence for the temporal self-regulation theory, and demonstrated the importance of immediate outcomes. More research attention in physical activity promotion should be given to the temporal dimension, especially for older adults who perceive future time as more limited. New directions to enhance outcome expectancies, especially for this population, also need further investigation.     

Display size effects in visual search: Analyses of reaction time distributions as mixtures

In a reanalysis of data from Cousineau and Shiffrin (2004) and two new visual search experiments, we used a likelihood ratio test to examine the full distributions of reaction time (RT) for evidence that the display size effect is a mixture-type effect that occurs on only a proportion of trials, leaving RT in the remaining trials unaffected, as is predicted by serial self-terminating search models. Experiment 1 was a reanalysis of Cousineau and Shiffrin's data, for which a mixture effect had previously been established by a bimodal distribution of RTs, and the results confirmed that the likelihood ratio test could also detect this mixture. Experiment 2 applied the likelihood ratio test within a more standard visual search task with a relatively easy target/distractor discrimination, and Experiment 3 applied it within a target identification search task within the same types of stimuli. Neither of these experiments provided any evidence for the mixture-type display size effect predicted by serial self-terminating search models. Overall, these results suggest that serial self-terminating search models may generally be applicable only with relatively difficult target/distractor discriminations, and then only for some participants. In addition, they further illustrate the utility of analysing full RT distributions in addition to mean RT.     

Effects of load on the time course of attentional engagement,disengagement, and orienting in reading

Sensory-motor delays vary over the course of development and under different environmental conditions. Previous research has shown that humans can compensate for the resulting temporal misalignment while performing sensory-motor tasks (e.g., Cunningham, Billock, & Tsou, 2001a), but remains silent on the question of whether perceptual learning—similar to that involved in adaptation to spatial misalignment (e.g., Redding & Wallace, 1993) and in adaptation to purely intersensory misalignment (e.g., Fujisaki, Shimojo, Kashino, & Nishida, 2004)—is also involved in this adaptive response. Following an attempted replication of Cunningham et al.'s (2001a) study in a preliminary experiment, we present in this paper two experiments that demonstrate that after-effects of adaptation to temporal misalignment do not spontaneously decay. The literature on adaptation to spatial misalignment suggests that, while instrumental learning spontaneously decays in the absence of reinforcement, perceptual learning persists. Therefore our results are consistent with adaptation being effected through perceptual learning.     

Lesions in the anterior thalamic nuclei of rats do not disrupt acquisition of stimulus sequence learning

Four experiments examined the effects of encoding multiple standards in a temporal generalization task in the visual and auditory modalities both singly and cross-modally, using stimulus durations ranging, across different experiments, from 100 to 1,400 ms. Previous work has shown that encoding and storing multiple auditory standards of different durations resulted in systematic interference with the memory of the standard, characterized by a shift in the location of peak responding, and this result, from Ogden, Wearden, and Jones (2008), was replicated in the present Experiment 1. Experiment 2 employed the basic procedure of Ogden et al. using visual stimuli and found that encoding multiple visual standards did not lead to performance deterioration or any evidence of systematic interference between the standards. Experiments 3 and 4 examined potential cross-modal interference. When two standards of different modalities and durations were encoded and stored together there was also no evidence of interference between the two. Taken together, these results, and those of Ogden et al., suggest that, in humans, visual temporal reference memory may be more permanent than auditory reference memory and that auditory temporal information and visual temporal information do not mutually interfere in reference memory.