Unconscious temporal attention induced by invisible temporal association cues.
Consciousness and cognition November 1, 2024 Yangyang Sun, Keshuo Wang, Xingjie Liang et al. 1 citation
Temporal attention—prioritizing information based on timing—can occur without conscious awareness. Using a temporal cueing paradigm with masking, visible and invisible cues both triggered temporal attention, though visible cues produced stronger effects. EEG recordings showed that both cue types evoked the contingent negative variation (CNV) component, with smaller amplitudes for invisible cues; the P300 component followed a similar pattern. Hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling indicated that both conscious and unconscious temporal attention involve non-perceptual decision-making processes. These findings both support and challenge the Global Workspace Theory: consciousness enhances attention through global broadcasting, whereas unconscious attention may rely on more localized neural networks.