Data from: Decoding the influence of anticipatory states on visual perception in the presence of temporal distractors

Anticipatory states help prioritise relevant perceptual targets over competing distractor stimuli and amplify early brain responses to these targets. Here we combine electroencephalography recordings in humans with multivariate stimulus decoding to address whether anticipation also increases the amount of target identity information contained in these responses, and to ask how targets are prioritised over distractors when these compete in time. We show that anticipatory cues not only boost visual target representations, but also delay the interference on these target representations caused by temporally adjacent distractor stimuli—possibly marking a protective window reserved for high-fidelity target processing. Enhanced target decoding and distractor resistance are further predicted by the attenuation of posterior 8–14 Hz alpha oscillations. These findings thus reveal multiple mechanisms by which anticipatory states help prioritise targets from temporally competing distractors, and they highlight the potential of non-invasive multivariate electrophysiology to track cognitive influences on perception in temporally crowded contexts.

预期状态可将相关知觉靶标置于竞争性干扰刺激之上，实现优先级排序，并放大针对此类靶标的早期脑反应。本研究结合人类脑电图（electroencephalography, EEG）记录与多变量刺激解码技术，旨在解答两个核心问题：其一，预期是否可提升此类脑反应中所蕴含的靶标身份信息量；其二，当靶标与干扰刺激在时间维度上相互竞争时，靶标如何优先于干扰刺激得到加工。研究结果表明，预期性线索不仅能够增强视觉靶标的神经表征，还可延缓时间相邻干扰刺激对该靶标表征所造成的干扰——这或许标志着一段为高保真靶标加工预留的保护性时间窗口。后部8-14Hz阿尔法振荡（alpha oscillations）的衰减，可进一步预测靶标解码能力的提升与对干扰刺激的抵抗性增强。综上，本研究揭示了预期状态从时间竞争性干扰刺激中优先筛选靶标的多重机制，并凸显了无创多变量电生理技术在追踪时间拥挤情境下认知对知觉的影响时所具备的应用潜力。