Effects of spatial, temporal and spatiotemporal cueing are alike when attention is directed voluntarily

Visual cues that allow predicting location and onset of a stimulus facilitate orienting. In a seminal study, Coull and Nobre (J Neurosci 18:7426-7435, 1998) adapted the spatial cueing paradigm to investigate temporal orienting. Recent research in the spatial domain suggests though that the cues used in the spatial and temporal conditions were not comparable. In the spatial condition predictive arrow cues engaged involuntary and voluntary attention, in the temporal condition line width cues elicited voluntary attention shifts. A valid comparison between attentional modalities on the behavioural and neurophysiological level requires though that cues differ only with respect to attentional modality (spatial, temporal) and not in other aspects. To develop cues that are comparable and to assess spatial and temporal orienting, new line width cues for spatial and temporal orienting were devised that both engage only voluntary attention, and the results were compared to the cues used by Coull and Nobre (J Neurosci 18:7426-7435, 1998). Further, catch trials were included to counteract reorienting at the late time interval to promote comparisons between spatial and temporal data at that interval. The results showed that the outcome of the comparison between spatial, temporal and spatiotemporal orienting depended on the type of cue that was used and hence the type of attention that was engaged in each condition. The results indicated that orienting is equally effective in space and in time when attention is directed voluntarily. The new cues employed here can easily be used for future studies to assess underlying brain mechanisms.