TY - JOUR
T1 - No evidence for tactile entrainment of attention
AU - Pomper, Ulrich
N1 - Copyright © 2023 Pomper.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Temporal patterns in our environment provide a rich source of information, to which endogenous neural processes linked to perception and attention can synchronize. This phenomenon, known as entrainment, has so far been studied predominately in the visual and auditory domains. It is currently unknown whether sensory phase-entrainment generalizes to the tactile modality, e.g., for the perception of surface patterns or when reading braille. Here, we address this open question via a behavioral experiment with preregistered experimental and analysis protocols. Twenty healthy participants were presented, on each trial, with 2 s of either rhythmic or arrhythmic 10 Hz tactile stimuli. Their task was to detect a subsequent tactile target either in-phase or out-of-phase with the rhythmic entrainment. Contrary to our hypothesis, we observed no evidence for sensory entrainment in response times, sensitivity or response bias. In line with several other recently reported null findings, our data suggest that behaviorally relevant sensory phase-entrainment might require very specific stimulus parameters, and may not generalize to the tactile domain.
AB - Temporal patterns in our environment provide a rich source of information, to which endogenous neural processes linked to perception and attention can synchronize. This phenomenon, known as entrainment, has so far been studied predominately in the visual and auditory domains. It is currently unknown whether sensory phase-entrainment generalizes to the tactile modality, e.g., for the perception of surface patterns or when reading braille. Here, we address this open question via a behavioral experiment with preregistered experimental and analysis protocols. Twenty healthy participants were presented, on each trial, with 2 s of either rhythmic or arrhythmic 10 Hz tactile stimuli. Their task was to detect a subsequent tactile target either in-phase or out-of-phase with the rhythmic entrainment. Contrary to our hypothesis, we observed no evidence for sensory entrainment in response times, sensitivity or response bias. In line with several other recently reported null findings, our data suggest that behaviorally relevant sensory phase-entrainment might require very specific stimulus parameters, and may not generalize to the tactile domain.
KW - Entrainment, Rhythm, Tactile
KW - somatosensory
KW - entrainment
KW - tactile
KW - alpha
KW - oscillation
KW - attention
KW - rhythm
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85161876572&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1168428
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1168428
M3 - Article
C2 - 37303888
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 14
SP - 1168428
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 1168428
ER -