Anticipatory brain activity depends on the sensory modality of the expected stimulus: insights from single-trial analyses

Abstract

Perceptual anticipation is known to impact the reaction time of decisions. While anticipatory patterns have been identified in human brain activity, the single-trial neural signature of anticipation remains unexplored. Similarly, past studies have underlined an effect of pre-stimulus alpha-band activity on reaction times. Still, it remains unknown whether this activity is stimulus-specific or rather acts as a general indicator of readiness. This study aimed to determine whether human participants expected a visual or an auditory stimulus at the single-trial level in both cued and uncued trials. We show that pre-stimulus brain activity entails information about the expected upcoming stimulus, and that the information content can be extracted from single-trial brain activity. Behavioral analyses helped uncover the link between correct anticipation and shifts in decision strategy, and additionally validated the classification of uncued trials. This understanding of single-trial stimulus-specific neural signatures of anticipation can significantly impact cognitive neuroscience, human-computer interaction, and neuroergonomics research, enabling the development of real-time systems capable of predicting and adapting to an individual’s anticipated stimuli, thereby enhancing task performance and user experience in diverse applications ranging from adaptive interfaces to clinical interventions.