The scope and precision of specific temporal expectancy: evidence from a variable foreperiod paradigm

Recent evidence from choice response time experiments with variable foreperiods (FPs) has shown that temporal expectancy can be event specific. When a certain target appears particularly frequent after one certain FP, participants tend to expect that target after that FP. This typically results in best performance for that target when it appears after that FP. In the present study, we investigated how temporally precise event-specific temporal expectancy is, and in which range of FPs it can be found. Two target stimuli were asymmetrically distributed over two "peak-FPs" and were equally distributed over 13 additional FPs. Event-specific expectancies were found for peak-FP pairs of 500/1,100 ms and 300/500 ms. Furthermore, the event expectancies generalized to a wide range of nonpeak FPs surrounding the peak FPs.