Different effects of spatial and temporal attention on the integration and segregation of stimuli in time

Poppy Sharp*, David Melcher, Clayton Hickey

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Having expectations about when and where relevant stimuli will appear engenders endogenous temporal and spatial orienting and can provide vital benefits to visual processing. Although more is known about how each of these forms of orienting affects spatial processing, comparatively little is understood about their influences on the temporal integration and segregation of rapid sequential stimuli. A critical question is whether the influence of spatial cueing on temporal processing involves independent spatial and temporal orienting effects or a synergistic spatiotemporal impact. Here we delineated between the temporal and spatial orienting engendered by endogenous cues by using a paradigm with identical visual stimulation when the goal was to integrate or segregate the stimuli, in separate blocks of trials. We found strong effects of spatial orienting on both integration and segregation performance. In contrast, temporal orienting engendered only an invalid cueing cost, and for integration trials only. This clear differentiation between spatial and temporal cueing effects provides constraints to inform arbitration between theories of how attention biases the visual processing stream and influences the organization of visual perception in time.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)433-441
Number of pages9
JournalAttention, Perception, and Psychophysics
Volume81
Issue number2
Early online date13 Nov 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Feb 2019

Keywords

  • Precuing
  • Selective attention
  • Temporal processing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Sensory Systems
  • Linguistics and Language

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