Karin Maria Bausenhart

Temporal preparation refers to systematic changes in performance that arise when the timing of an event becomes predictable. From very early on in experimental psychology, research has shown that temporal predictability robustly shortens response times and modulates attentional states across a wide range of tasks. This review provides a comprehensive historical and contemporary synthesis of theoretical and empirical contributions to temporal preparation research. First, we present a brief overview of basic concepts, paradigms, and findings in temporal preparation research, and review mechanisms that have been suggested to address the question of how preparation emerges and how it may impact human cognitive processing. Second, in the main part of this article, we review findings from behavioral and electrophysiological studies that shed light on which cognitive processes are affected by temporal preparation in humans, aiming to take stock of the most robust empirical phenomena. Here, the main focus will be on the rich tradition of foreperiod effects, complemented by relevant results from temporal cueing and related paradigms. We show that temporal preparation has widespread consequences for cognitive processing, from increasing sensory gain to changes in response dynamics and various motor-related measures. These findings challenge traditional accounts that locate temporal preparation in specific processing stages (e.g., historically, the motor system). Instead, contemporary models must take into account a multi-component view of temporal preparation, in which preparatory processes impact various processes.

A long-standing debate in cognitive science is whether cognitive control recruits domain-general or domain-specific processes. A useful paradigm to study this is the congruency sequence effect, which reflects the reduced impact of congruency after an incongruent trial. Many studies examined the congruency sequence effect across task in order to investigate domain generality. However, differences in how task dissimilarity was manipulated led to different conclusions about the nature of adaptive control. Therefore, we conducted a systematic, preregistered meta-analysis of 174 experiments (229 effect sizes). On average, the cross-task congruency sequence effect (Hedges’ gz = 0.252) decreased as task dissimilarity increased, with some factors influencing adaptive control more than others. Especially when tasks used a different response modality or conflict arose from different irrelevant stimulus dimensions, we observed a decreased cross-task congruency sequence effect, suggesting adaptive control is both action-oriented and involves distractor suppression. Notably, however, when tasks shared the same conflict type, larger congruency sequence effects were observed when stimulus and response sets were distinct rather than partially overlapping. Together, these findings refine current theories by pointing to a central role for the different motor modalities, distractor suppression, and shared versus separate task representations, moving beyond a simple domain-general versus domain-specific distinction.Keywords: meta analysis, conflict adaptation, congruency sequence effect, domain generality, cognitive control

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the Type B effect (TBE), a phenomenon reflected in the observation that discrimination sensitivity varies with the order of stimuli in comparative judgment tasks, such as the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) paradigm. Specifically, when the difference threshold is lower (higher) with the constant standard preceding rather than following the variable comparison, one speaks of a negative (positive) TBE. Importantly, prominent psychophysical difference models such as signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966) cannot easily account for the TBE, and are hence challenged by it. The present meta-analysis provides substantial evidence for the TBE across various stimulus attributes, suggesting that the TBE is a general feature of discrimination experiments when standard and comparison are presented successively. Thus, inconsistent with psychophysical difference models, subjective differences between stimuli are not merely a function of their physical differences but rather also depend on their temporal order. From the literature, we identify four classes of potential candidate theories explaining the origin of the TBE, namely (1) differential weighting of the stimulus magnitudes at the two positions (e.g., Hellström, Psychological Research,39, 345–388 1977), (2) internal reference formation (e.g., Dyjas, Bausenhart, & Ulrich, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics,74, 1819–1841 2012), (3) Bayesian updating (e.g., de Jong, Akyürek, & van Rijn, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review,28, 1183–1190 2021), and (4) biased threshold estimation (García-Pérez & Alcalá-Quintana, Attention, Perception & Psychophysics,72, 1155–1178 2010). As these models, to some extent, make differential predictions about the direction of the TBE, investigating the respective boundary conditions of positive and negative TBEs might be a valuable perspective for diagnostic future research.

Construal level theory suggests that objects or events are represented differently depending on their psychological distance from ourselves. Specifically, objects and events should be represented more abstractly the farther they are removed from direct experience through distance in the spatial, temporal, social, or hypotheticality domains. Bar-Anan et al. reported a key finding supporting this assumed association of the various distance dimensions and abstraction level. In their study, participants responded faster in an Implicit Association Task when temporally near and concrete concepts, as well as temporally far and abstract concepts, were mapped to the same rather than different response keys. In this study, we conceptually replicated this basic finding when employing temporal adverbs relating to present versus future time, and nouns referring to concrete versus abstract concepts (Experiment 1). Evidence for such an association, however, was largely absent (and significantly weaker than in Experiment 1) when temporal adverbs relating to the past were employed as instances of the large temporal distance category (Experiment 2). We propose that the uncertainty associated with the future, as opposed to the past, might play an important role in this temporal asymmetry by increasing psychological distance.

Accounting for how the human mind represents the internal and external world is a crucial feature of many theories of human cognition. Central to this question is the distinction between modal as opposed to amodal representational formats. It has often been assumed that one but not both of these two types of representations underlie processing in specific domains of cognition (e.g., perception, mental imagery, and language). However, in this paper, we suggest that both formats play a major role in most cognitive domains. We believe that a comprehensive theory of cognition requires a solid understanding of these representational formats and their functional roles within and across different domains of cognition, the developmental trajectory of these representational formats, and their role in dysfunctional behavior. Here we sketch such an overarching perspective that brings together research from diverse subdisciplines of psychology on modal and amodal representational formats so as to unravel their functional principles and their interactions.

Accounting for how the human mind represents the internal and external world is a crucial feature of many theories of human cognition. Central to this question is the distinction between modal as opposed to amodal representational formats. It has often been assumed that one but not both of these two types of representations underlies processing in specific domains of cognition (e.g., perception, mental imagery, and language). However, in this paper we suggest that both formats play a major role in most cognitive domains. We believe that a comprehensive theory of cognition requires a solid understanding of these representational formats and their functional roles within and across different domains of cognition, the developmental trajectory of these representational formats, and their role in dysfunctional behavior. Here we sketch such an overarching perspective that brings together research from diverse subdisciplines of psychology on modal and amodal representational formats so as to unravel their functional principles and their interactions.

Construal Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) suggests that objects or events are represented differently depending on their psychological distance from ourselves. Specifically, objects and events should be represented more abstractly the farther they are removed from direct experience through distance in the spatial, temporal, social or hypotheticality domains. Bar-Anan, Liberman, and Trope (2006) reported a key finding supporting this assumed association of the various distance dimensions and abstraction level. In their study, participants responded faster in an Implicit Association Task when temporally near and concrete concepts, as well as temporally far and abstract concepts, were mapped to the same rather than different response keys. In the present study, we replicated this basic finding when employing temporal adverbs relating to present vs. future time, and nouns referring to concrete vs. abstract concepts (Experiment 1), but not when temporal adverbs relating to the past were employed as instances of the large temporal distance category (Experiment 2). We propose that the uncertainty associated with the future, as opposed to the past, might play an important role in this temporal asymmetry by increasing psychological distance.

This study examines how artificial tactile stimulation from a novel non-invasive sensory device is learned and integrated with information from the visual sensory system. In our experiment, visual direction information was paired with reliable symbolic tactile information. Over several training blocks, discrimination performance in unimodal tactile test trials and participants’ confidence in their decision improved, indicating that participants could associate the visual and tactile information consciously and thus learned the meaning of the symbolic tactile cues. Our results showed that information from both modalities is integrated during the early learning phase. Even though this integration is consistent with a Bayesian integration model, under certain conditions, it may even lead to non-optimal perception such that participants’ performance is worse than if they were using only a single cue. Furthermore, we showed that a confidence-based Bayesian integration explains the observed behavioral data better than the classical variance-based Bayesian integration. The present study demonstrates that humans can consciously learn and integrate an artificial sensory device providing symbolic tactile information. We also shed light on how Bayesian integration can lead to non-optimal perception by providing additional models and simulations. Our finding connects the field of multisensory integration to the development of sensory substitution systems.

Two experiments examined global and local behavioral adaptation effects within and across the Eriksen task, where conflict is based on stimulus letter identities, and the Simon task, where conflict is based on stimulus and response locations. Trials of the two tasks were randomly intermixed, and the list-wide proportion of congruent trials was varied in both tasks (Experiment 1) or in just one task (Experiment 2). The global adaptation effect of list-wide congruency proportion (LWPC effect) was at least as large in the Simon task as in the Eriksen task. Likewise, the local adaptation effect of previous-trial congruency (Gratton effect) was at least as large in the Simon task as in the Eriksen task. In contrast to prior studies investigating transfer across Stroop and Simon tasks, there was no dissociation between global and local adaptation effects regarding their transfer across the different conflict tasks. In fact, both local and global adaptation effects appeared largely task-specific, because there was no or only little transfer of either Gratton effects or LWPC effects from the Eriksen to the Simon task or vice versa. On the whole, the results suggest that behavioral adaptation observed in the present design does not carry over from one of these tasks to the other, suggesting no involvement of a higher-order, task-general mechanism of cognitive control.