- Path:
-
Phasic Alertness Requires Top-Down Target Expectations
Files
External resources
Periodical
- Title:
- Open psychology
- Publication:
-
Warsaw: De Gruyter Open
- Note:
- Gesehen am 13.07.18
- Open Access
- Namensnennung 4.0 International
- Scope:
- Online-Ressource
- ISSN:
- 2543-8883
- ZDB-ID:
-
2935965-X
- VÖBB-Katalog:
- 35423565
- Keywords:
- Zeitschrift
- Classification:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Collection:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Copyright:
- Rights reserved
- Accessibility:
- Free Access
- Title:
- Open psychology
- Publication:
-
Warsaw: De Gruyter Open
- Note:
- Gesehen am 13.07.18
- Open Access
- Namensnennung 4.0 International
- Scope:
- Online-Ressource
- ISSN:
- 2543-8883
- ZDB-ID:
-
2935965-X
- VÖBB-Katalog:
- 35423565
- Keywords:
- Zeitschrift
- Classification:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Collection:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Copyright:
- Rights reserved
- Accessibility:
- Free Access
Article
- Title:
- Phasic Alertness Requires Top-Down Target Expectations
- Publication:
-
Warsaw: De Gruyter Open, 2026
- Language:
- English
- Information:
- Abstract: Human survival depends on their ability to react fast to challenges from the environment. To support this, stimuli preceding target stimuli can serve as warnings, or alerts, and the brain uses them to elicit phasic alertness, a temporary state of readiness for perception and action. Traditionally, it is assumed that phasic alertness is bottom-up stimulus-driven and thus independent of top-down processing, for instance of the top-down expectations for external stimuli. Here, we falsify this assumption. In two experiments, participants performed a choice task whose target stimuli were preceded by an auditory alert or no alert. In separate sessions, alerts were followed by a target on 90 % or 10 % of the trials, thus predicting whether a target or no target was about to appear. Compared with the no alert condition, alerting supported action and made choice reactions faster (the classic phasic alerting effect), but this was only the case if the alert predicted the target. This reveals that the behavioral benefits of phasic alertness are not entirely stimulus-driven, but are to a part based on the expectation of target stimuli due to alerts. Therefore, even though phasic alertness seems to be elicited in a bottom-up fashion, it can only support behavior if it fits in with the running top-down processing.
- Scope:
- Online-Ressource
- Note:
- Open Access
- Archivierung/Langzeitarchivierung gewährleistet
- Keywords:
- arousal ; attention ; expectation ; prediction ; vision ; audition
- Classification:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Collection:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Copyright:
- CC BY
- Accessibility:
- Free Access
- Title:
- Phasic Alertness Requires Top-Down Target Expectations
- Publication:
-
Warsaw: De Gruyter Open, 2026
- Language:
- English
- Information:
- Abstract: Human survival depends on their ability to react fast to challenges from the environment. To support this, stimuli preceding target stimuli can serve as warnings, or alerts, and the brain uses them to elicit phasic alertness, a temporary state of readiness for perception and action. Traditionally, it is assumed that phasic alertness is bottom-up stimulus-driven and thus independent of top-down processing, for instance of the top-down expectations for external stimuli. Here, we falsify this assumption. In two experiments, participants performed a choice task whose target stimuli were preceded by an auditory alert or no alert. In separate sessions, alerts were followed by a target on 90 % or 10 % of the trials, thus predicting whether a target or no target was about to appear. Compared with the no alert condition, alerting supported action and made choice reactions faster (the classic phasic alerting effect), but this was only the case if the alert predicted the target. This reveals that the behavioral benefits of phasic alertness are not entirely stimulus-driven, but are to a part based on the expectation of target stimuli due to alerts. Therefore, even though phasic alertness seems to be elicited in a bottom-up fashion, it can only support behavior if it fits in with the running top-down processing.
- Scope:
- Online-Ressource
- Note:
- Open Access
- Archivierung/Langzeitarchivierung gewährleistet
- Keywords:
- arousal ; attention ; expectation ; prediction ; vision ; audition
- Classification:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Collection:
- Psychologie
- Medizin
- Copyright:
- CC BY
- Accessibility:
- Free Access
