The influence of spatial attention on temporal perception: Differential effects of involuntary and voluntary attention

Elisabeth Hein

Vision and Information Processing Lab, Penn State University

Yeshurun and Levy (2003) demonstrated that visual attention can impair perceptual processing. In this study, participants were asked to detect a temporal gap within an otherwise continuously presented dot. Gap detection was worse when attention was directed toward the stimulus. To assess whether this counterintuitive finding generalizes to another temporal task, we examined the influence of spatial attention on temporal-order discrimination in a series of cueing experiments. Our results suggest that involuntary attention (oriented with peripheral or non-predictive central cues) impairs temporal-order discrimination whereas voluntary attention (oriented with predictive central cues) enhances it. Thus involuntary as well as voluntary attention seems to influence temporal perception. However, these results contrast with recent conclusions of Prinzmetal, McCool and Park (2005). We are currently pursuing a resolution to this apparent contrast.