Dynamics of temporal anticipation in perception and action

233 Pages·2017·7.78 MB·English

Dynamics of temporal anticipation
in perception and action

Simone Gerdien Heideman

New College

DPhil Thesis, Trinity Term 2017
Dynamics of temporal anticipation in
perception and action

Simone Gerdien Heideman

New College Trinity Term 2017

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford

Abstract

The selective deployment of attention over time optimises our perception and
action at the moments when relevant events are expected to happen. Such
“temporal orienting” to moments when something is going to happen is
especially useful when this information can be combined with predictions
about where and what events are likely to occur. A large body of research has
already established how temporal predictions dynamically influence our
perception and action, but questions remain regarding the neural bases of
these attentional mechanisms. In this thesis I present three
magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies that I conducted to investigate
anticipatory neural dynamics associated with spatial-temporal orienting of
attention for perception and action. I also investigate and discuss how such
anticipatory dynamics change with ageing and neurodegeneration in
Parkinson’s disease (PD), and how these anticipatory neural dynamics behave
in situations where a complex, hidden spatial-temporal structure is present. In
Chapter 1, I introduce the topic of this thesis by reviewing the literature on
temporal orienting of attention and by introducing my specific research
questions. In Chapter 2, I present an MEG study on anticipatory neural
dynamics of joint spatial-temporal orienting of attention in the visual domain,
in younger and older adults. This study shows that neural dynamics with
spatial, temporal and spatial-temporal orienting are all differentially affected
by ageing. In Chapter 3, I describe an MEG experiment that investigates
anticipatory neural dynamics during spatial-temporal motor preparation and
compares PD participants to healthy control participants. This study reveals
that both behavioural and neural dynamics with temporal orienting are
affected in PD. In Chapter 4, I describe an experiment that explores how an
implicit spatial-temporal structure is utilised to predict and prepare for
upcoming actions. This study shows that motor cortical excitability is
dynamically modulated in anticipation of the location and timing of events,
even when such expectations are hidden in complex visual-motor sequences
that remain largely implicit. In Chapter 5, the General discussion, I place these
results in their wider context and discuss limitations and future directions.

Approximate word count: 48,000 words
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Acknowledgements

This thesis concludes the four years of research that I did at the Oxford Centre
for Human Brain Activity (OHBA) at the University of Oxford. This work was
funded by the MRC MEG UK Partnership. In addition to my funders, there are
many people that I feel indebted to. I would like to take this opportunity to
thank them.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Kia Nobre and
Freek van Ede. It was a pleasure to work with both of them. I hope that Kia
knows how grateful I am for all her guidance and wisdom throughout the
years. I feel very lucky to have her as my mentor. I wish to thank Freek for his
endless scientific enthusiasm, his efficiency, and for all our helpful discussions.
Without Freek, I would probably still be stuck with some projects.
I am also very grateful to all current and past inhabitants of OHBA and
members of the B&C lab. I thank them all for their friendship and for making
OHBA such a wonderful, supportive place to work. Many of them have
contributed to this thesis one way or another. In particular, I would like to
thank Gustavo Rohenkohl, Clare Palmer, Joshua Chauvin and Sven Braeutigam,
for collecting the data presented in Chapter 2. I would like to thank Céline
Gillebert and Gustavo Rohenkohl for their help with the data analysis
presented in Chapter 2. I am grateful to Sven Braeutigam, Malcolm Proudfoot,
and Joshua Chauvin for their help with the data collection for Chapter 3. I
would like to thank Andrew Quinn and Mark Woolrich for helpful discussions
regarding the MEG data analysis presented in Chapters 2, 3 and 4.
I would also like to thank my friends, both here in Oxford and back home
in the Netherlands. Without them, the last four years would have been a lot
less fun. I would also like to mention everyone involved with New College Boat
Club. I will never forget the great times we had, both on and off the water.
I would like to say special thanks to my mom and dad, Lotte, Abel, Inge,
and Juha. I would not have gotten this far without my mom and dad’s
unconditional love and support throughout the years. I hope I make them
proud. I would also like to thank Lot, for being the most amazing sister there
is, and for always cheering me up whenever I needed it most. I never had a
little brother, but thanks to Abel I feel that I know what it's like to have one
now. I hope that Inge knows how much I value having her as my best friend.
Finally, a big thanks to Juha, for putting up with me whenever I was feeling
stressed, for making me laugh, and for keeping me sane
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List of publications

Heideman SG, van Ede F, Nobre AC (in preparation) Reduced behavioural and
neural dynamics of temporally cued motor preparation in Parkinson’s
disease.

Heideman SG, Rohenkohl G, Chauvin JJ, Palmer CE, van Ede F, Nobre AC (under
review). Anticipatory neural dynamics of spatial-temporal orienting of
attention in younger and older adults.

Heideman SG, van Ede F, Nobre AC (2017a) Early behavioural facilitation by
temporal expectations in complex visual-motor sequences. J Physiol-
Paris 110:487-496.

Heideman SG, van Ede F, Nobre AC (2017b) Temporal alignment of
anticipatory motor cortical beta lateralisation in hidden visual-motor
sequences. Eur J Neurosci 2017, 1-12.

Part of Chapter 1 is based on a book chapter on temporal orienting that I wrote
with one of my supervisors:

Nobre AC, Heideman SG (2015) Temporal Orienting of Attention. In: The
Handbook of Attention (Kingstone A, Fawcett JM, Risko EF, eds), pp 57–
78. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

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Table of contents
Table of contents

Chapter 1: General introduction 1
1.1 Overview 2
1.1.1 Historical overview 3
1.1.2 Overview of this chapter 4
1.2 Types of temporal orienting, and their influence on
behavioural performance 5
1.2.1 Hazard rates. 6
1.2.2 Rhythms 6
1.2.3 Temporal cues 7
1.3 Neural representations of temporal orienting 9
1.3.1 Models and mechanisms of timing 9
1.3.2 Temporal orienting and the brain 11
1.4 Using MEG to study spatial-temporal orienting of attention 12
1.4.1 The MEG signal 13
1.4.2 The benefits of using MEG 14
1.4.3 Neural oscillations involved in perceptual
anticipation and motor preparation 15
Oscillations in the alpha (~8-12 Hz) band 16
Oscillations in the beta (~14 – 28 Hz) band 16
Frequency bands involved in temporal orienting 17
1.5 EEG and MEG studies on temporal orienting of attention 18
1.5.1 Hazard rates 18
1.5.2 Rhythms and entrainment effects 19
1.5.3 Temporal cues 21
1.6 Modes of temporal orienting: commonalities and
dissociations 22
1.7 Interactions between temporal and spatial orienting for
perception and action 24
1.8 Overview of this thesis 28
1.8.1 Chapter 2: Spatial-temporal orienting for perception
in ageing 28
1.8.2 Chapter 3: Temporal orienting and selective motor
preparation in Parkinson's disease 31
1.8.3 Chapter 4: Spatial-temporal orienting in complex
sequences 32
1.8.4 Implications 33
Chapter 2: Anticipatory neural dynamics of spatial-temporal orienting
in ageing 35
2.1 Introduction 36
2.2 Methods 38
2.2.1 Participants 38
2.2.2 Clinical and neuropsychological evaluation 39
2.2.3 Experimental set-up 39
2.2.4 Experimental procedure and stimuli 40
Overview of sessions 40
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Table of contents
MEG paradigm and procedure 41
MEG practice and staircase 43
2.2.5 Behavioural analysis 44
2.2.6 MEG analysis 45
Pre-processing and artefact rejection 45
Region-of-interest selection based on
event-related fields 46
Time-frequency analysis 47
2.2.7 Analysis of eye-tracking data 49
2.3 Results 49
2.3.1 Behavioural results 50
2.3.2 MEG results 52
Region-of-interest selection 52
Spatial orienting effects 53
Temporal and spatial-temporal orienting effects 56
2.3.3 Gaze analysis 59
2.4 Discussion 61
2.4.1 Neurophysiology of spatial-temporal orienting 62
2.4.2 Anticipatory gamma dynamics 63
2.4.3 Spatial-temporal orienting and anticipatory brain
dynamics
in ageing 65
2.4.4 Conclusions 67
Chapter 3: Diminished behavioural facilitation and anticipatory neural
dynamics of temporally cued motor preparation in Parkinson’s disease 69
3.1 Introduction 70
3.2 Methods 74
3.2.1 Participants 74
3.2.2 Neuropsychological evaluation and UPDRS 76
3.2.3 Experimental setup 78
3.2.4 Experimental procedure and stimuli 79
Overview of sessions 79
Experimental task 80
3.2.5 Behavioural analysis 82
3.2.6 MEG analysis 83
Pre-processing and artefact rejection 83
Analysis of event-related fields for
region-of-interest selection 84
Selection of anticipatory time-window-of-interest 85
Frequency and time-frequency analysis 85
Analysis of correlation with behavioural
performance 88
3.3 Results 88
3.3.1 Behavioural results 88
3.3.2 MEG results 91
Region-of-interest selection 91
Frequency analysis 93
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Table of contents
Frequency-resolved anticipatory modulations in
the time-window of interest (TWOI) 98
Anticipatory modulations across time and
frequency and space 101
Correlations between MEG data and
behavioural performance 105
3.4 Discussion 108
3.4.1 Temporal orienting and timing deficits in PD 108
3.4.2 Beta modulations in PD 110
3.4.3 Deficiencies in visual anticipation in PD 112
3.4.4 Limitations and future directions 113
3.4.5 Conclusions 115
Chapter 4: Anticipatory cognitive and neural dynamics in hidden
visual-motor sequences 116
4.1 Introduction 117
4.2 Methods - Task development and pilot study 121
4.2.1 Changes with respect to previous SRT studies 122
4.2.2 Experimental task and procedure 123
4.2.3 Behavioural analysis 125
4.3 Results - Task development and pilot study 126
4.3.1 Behavioural results 126
4.3.2 Evaluation and final MEG design 128
4.4 Methods - Main experiment 130
4.4.1 Participants 130
4.4.2 Experimental setup 131
4.4.3 Experimental procedure and stimuli 133
Overview of sessions 133
Experimental task 134
Assessment of explicit awareness of spatial and
temporal task features 137
4.4.4 Behavioural analysis 138
4.4.5 MEG Analysis 139
Pre-processing and artefact rejection 139
Region-of-interest selection based on
event-related fields 140
Time-frequency analysis 141
Post-hoc analyses 143
4.5 Results - Main experiment 144
4.5.1 Behavioural results 145
Temporal-spatial learning effects 145
Temporal orienting effects across intervals 148
Assessment of awareness of spatial sequence 153
Assessment of awareness of temporal sequence 155
4.5.2 MEG results 157
Region-of-interest selection 157
Motor preparation 158
Visual anticipation 161
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Table of contents
Trial-wise correlations with reaction time 163
Beta modulations in the medium interval 165
4.6 Discussion 166
4.6.1 The influence of learned spatial-temporal
structure on behaviour 168
4.6.2 Neural dynamics of the utilisation of predictive
spatial-temporal sequence structure 172
4.6.3 Anticipatory spatial-temporal beta modulations in
hidden spatial-temporal sequences 174
4.6.4 The nature of proactive anticipation in SRT tasks 177
4.6.5 Conclusions and future directions 178
Chapter 5: General discussion 179
5.1 Temporal orienting for perception 180
5.2 Temporal orienting for action 182
5.3 Joint spatial and temporal orienting 183
5.4 Changes with ageing and neurodegeneration 187
5.5 Future directions in the field of temporal orienting 191
Bibliography 195
Appendix 2.1 Clinical and Neurological evaluation of older adults 212
Appendix 3.1 Neuropsychological evaluation 216
Appendix 3.2 Lateralisation of PD symptoms 218
Appendix 3.3 Line plots of anticipatory beta band activity 220
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Chapter 1: General introduction

This thesis investigates temporal orienting of attention, and its interaction
with the anticipation of spatial targets and upcoming motor responses. The
first set of empirical studies in the thesis use well established spatiotemporal
cueing tasks to explore anticipatory neural modulations in young, healthy
adults, and how these processes change with ageing and neurodegeneration in
Parkinson’s disease. The final empirical study develops a new task
methodology to investigate how spatiotemporal anticipation is utilised in the
context of learned complex spatial-temporal relationships among sequences
of events. To introduce the topic of this thesis, I start by reviewing the early
investigations that started this field. Second, I outline the literature on
different types of temporal orienting and on how these processes may be
supported in the brain. I explain why it is particularly interesting to look at the
oscillatory dynamics that are involved in these processes and why MEG is well
suited to study the fast time scales on which these processes evolve in the
human brain. I discuss why it is important to investigate interactions between
temporal orienting and other types of modulatory attention-related signals,
like information about where perceptual events are going to happen, or what
actions should be prepared and executed. Finally, I introduce the three
experiments that constitute this thesis.

Part of this chapter is based on a book chapter on temporal orienting (Nobre
& Heideman, 2015).

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Chapter 1: General introduction
1.1 Overview
Attention is a highly selective and dynamic process that focuses our behavioural
and neural processing on the relevant aspects of our environment to guide our
behaviour in concordance with our current goals. It is well established that
expectations about different attributes of forthcoming events allow us to orient
our attention to relevant stimuli and to facilitate perception and action (Nobre
and Kastner, 2014). The field of attention has focused primarily on expectations
about the location (spatial attention) and identity (object-based and feature-
based attention) of anticipated stimuli. More recently, the ability to orient
attention selectively in time has also been recognised. The experiments in this
thesis explore how such selective temporal expectations combine with
expectations about other attributes to guide adaptive perception and action.
Arguably, being able to predict when something is going to happen is not very
useful in itself, but this information becomes highly relevant when it is combined
with predictions about where and what events will occur and how you should
respond to these events. By understanding how such expectations about the
timing of events interact with preparation for selective perceptual analysis and
preparation of relevant actions, we gain information about how the brain
optimises our perception and actions within a dynamic framework. Before I
outline the contents of this chapter, I first give a short historical overview of the
research that started the field of temporal orienting.

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