title: Knowing when to hear aids what to hear.
abstract: Temporal preparation often has been assumed to influence motor stages of information processing. Recent studies, however, challenge this notion and provide evidence for a facilitation of visual processing. The present study was designed to investigate whether perceptual processing in the auditory domain also benefits from temporal preparation. To this end, we employed a pitch discrimination task. In Experiment 1, discrimination performance was clearly improved when participants were temporally prepared. This finding was confirmed in Experiment 2, which ruled out possible influences of short-term memory. The results support the notion that temporal preparation enhances perceptual processing not only in the visual, but also in the auditory, modality.
authors.affiliation: Psychologisches Institut, University of Tübingen, Friedrichstrasse 21, D-72072 Tübingen, Germany. karin.bausenhart@uni-tuebingen.de
authors.forename: Karin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Bausenhart
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rolke
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ulrich
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors