Temporal expectation makes our action more cautious: Evidence from unconscious processing

Unconscious motor inhibition is thought to be automatically generated when individuals encounter potentially disturbing information, so it can make the individual's actions cautious and as minimally disturbed as possible. Temporal expectation is a top-down active preparation for future events that can enhance relevant cognitive processing in the expected temporal frame. To gain further insight into how temporal expectation amplifies unconscious motor inhibition, two experiments were conducted in micro- and macro-expectation contexts, respectively, and found stronger motor inhibition when the occurrence time of a subliminal stimulus could be anticipated. The results confirm our proposed expectation-amplifier hypothesis. Specifically, greater motor readiness is elicited when individuals are highly prepared for upcoming stimuli. If the stimuli are identified as disturbing information (e.g., subliminally interrupted rather than constant stimuli), the cognitive monitoring system will automatically generate reinforcing inhibition to suppress motor readiness, temporal expectation thus makes the individual’s actions more cautious.