Neural basis of auditory-induced shifts in visual time-order perception

Attended objects are perceived to occur before unattended objects even when the two objects are presented simultaneously. This finding has led to the widespread view that attention modulates the speed of neural transmission in the various perceptual pathways. We recorded event-related potentials during a time-order judgment task to determine whether a reflexive shift of attention to a sudden sound modulates the speed of sensory processing in the human visual system. Attentional cueing influenced the perceived order of lateralized visual events but not the timing of event-related potentials in visual cortex. Attentional cueing did, however, enhance the amplitude of neural activity in visual cortex, which shows that attention-induced shifts in visual time-order perception can arise from modulations of signal strength rather than processing speed in the early visual-cortical pathways.