Spatial but not temporal orienting of attention enhances the temporal acuity of human peripheral vision in an ecologically valid scenario

Spatial but not temporal orienting of attention enhances the temporal acuity of human peripheral vision in an ecologically valid scenario | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Spatial but not temporal orienting of attention enhances the temporal acuity of human peripheral vision in an ecologically valid scenario Francois Foerster, Anne Giersch, Axel Cleeremans This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5930075/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 29 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in Communications Psychology → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The temporal acuity of a sensory system determines its capacity to detect delays between events, which enables ordering the events in time and adapting behaviors accordingly. Whether and how voluntary attention drives visual temporal acuity is still unclear, especially in peripheral vision. Here, we present a psychophysical study aimed at 1) evaluating whether cue-based spatial and temporal orientation of visual attention modulates the temporal acuity in peripheral vision, 2) assessing to what extent these modulations rely on shared or distinct mechanisms, and 3) exploring whether these modulations are cumulative or independent from each other. To address these goals, forty participants performed an ecologically valid asynchrony detection task in immersive virtual reality whilst electroencephalographic and pupillary dynamics were recorded. We found non-cumulative reductions of pupil constriction during the processing of cues orienting attention in space and time. This suggests that pupil size represents a readout of the formation of cue-based spatiotemporal expectations about visual targets. We further found that pre-target oscillatory dynamics in posterior theta and alpha bands are suppressed by both spatial and temporal orienting of visual attention, with cumulative effects, while beta band activity remains unaffected. These modulations provide evidence for shared and interactive top-down mechanisms of explicit spatial and temporal attention on visual temporal processing. Yet, despite these modulations, only explicit spatial orienting enhances the sensitivity to asynchronies. Implicit, but not cue-based temporal orienting increased task performance. This highlights that explicit endogenous attention directed to space – but not to time – increases the temporal acuity of peripheral vision. Overall, these results cast unambiguous doubts on the accepted trade-off that spatial attention always meliorate spatial visual acuity while impeding temporal visual acuity, and thus call for the further refinement of models of visual attention. Social science/Psychology/Human behaviour Biological sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive neuroscience/Perception Biological sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive neuroscience/Attention Selective attention temporal acuity temporal segmentation time perception spatial orienting Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SupplMat.pdf Supplementary Materials Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 29 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in Communications Psychology → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5930075","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":411083180,"identity":"91a5c7ec-156d-4c79-bec8-5b8c779a3817","order_by":0,"name":"Francois Foerster","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABAUlEQVRIie2QsWrDMBCGzwTk5WhWGRf7Fc4Y7G5+FZtCpg6eiqdGWTzlAdTH6JLZQWv6BMkQCHjq0qWk4KGyoKEdlGTMoG+QTgcfd78AHI4bxBfm4gCT7tTyFEBnEQCw+1VYORZkWtco8Efh5QUlVP3+2DwUwCbrQzMMUf76QaqGXWRV7mZ5stzwSjD2mLy3lN5vn0hJ6FObUiBkodfqZeJlFiwEVTLUCoKqhG0K+l+johfD/FsMNJfBxihzu4JmiicYZvqgknM0SmnNgvgcjFlanSVYtGkicVYrSX1yZrEVPzYvxVT/2KcYopj76u1QN7vYNuUE+/+ki4LD4XA4zvADYnBMzuMUrocAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9454-4815","institution":"Consciousness, Cognition and Computation Group (CO3), Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences (CRCN), ULB Neuroscience Institute (UNI), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussel","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Francois","middleName":"","lastName":"Foerster","suffix":""},{"id":411083181,"identity":"aee07814-00e5-4519-a1e6-a84453760dde","order_by":1,"name":"Anne Giersch","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8577-6021","institution":"INSERM","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Anne","middleName":"","lastName":"Giersch","suffix":""},{"id":411083182,"identity":"2e61f5a9-55f8-4cc0-bc37-10672bca159a","order_by":2,"name":"Axel Cleeremans","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Axel","middleName":"","lastName":"Cleeremans","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-01-30 11:55:59","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5930075/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5930075/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00295-6","type":"published","date":"2025-07-29T04:00:00+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":88507259,"identity":"e27e9ce9-cf34-4b0c-8ffb-beea94342d67","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-08-07 07:37:14","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2567810,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5930075/v1_covered_ba40feca-5379-4f75-9e1d-a88c00e88538.pdf"},{"id":75649297,"identity":"8c2ffe6f-1dd2-4014-a816-45b71bc4de2b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-02-06 17:36:52","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":732805,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Supplementary Materials","description":"","filename":"SupplMat.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5930075/v1/23403a54f1d6223ef6a74174.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Spatial but not temporal orienting of attention enhances the temporal acuity of human peripheral vision in an ecologically valid scenario","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Selective attention, temporal acuity, temporal segmentation, time perception, spatial orienting","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5930075/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5930075/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"The temporal acuity of a sensory system determines its capacity to detect delays between events, which enables ordering the events in time and adapting behaviors accordingly. 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