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**Yu-Ang Cheng1, Huan Luo1,2,3, ***

1 School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, China.

2 PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, China

3 Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, China

ABSTRACT

The brain efficiently coordinates its limited resources over external information through attention. Recent studies demonstrate that attention works in a dynamic way, whereby multiple locations, objects, and features are rhythmically sampled over time. However, it remains largely unknown whether attentional rhythm is inherently hardwired or can adapt to prior experience and changes flexibly. Here we used time-resolved behavioral measurements on 25 human subjects to examine whether externally induced rhythm in prior experience would influence spatial attentional rhythm. Specifically, subjects were first exposed to a rhythmic prime display (rhythmic prime), i.e., a near-threshold stimulus was presented alternatively between two spatial locations for 2500 ms at 3 Hz or 5 Hz. Next, after a varied time interval (200 to 1000 ms in steps of 33 ms), a near-threshold probe appeared at one of the two locations and subjects needed to detect the target and the accuracies were measured. First, behavioral data shows 2.5 Hz attentional rhythm when there is no prior stimulus, largely consistent with previous findings. Most importantly, the attentional rhythm is modulated by the temporal characteristics of prime stimulation, i.e., increasing to 4.5 Hz for 5 Hz prime and remaining at 2.5 Hz for 3 Hz prime, when the probe was presented in the left visual field. Taken together, our results suggest that visual attentional rhythm is not a fixed clock and could be modulated by and adapt to prior dynamic experience.