Modifying temporal expectations: Changing cortical responsivity to delayed self-initiated sensations with training

The perceptual system makes a specific prediction regarding the timing of impending, self-initiated sensations to facilitate the attenuation of these sensations. The current study used electroencephalography to investigate whether temporal expectations can be modified with training. Participants underwent a button-press-for-tone task and evoked responses to the tones were measured. Fifty participants were randomly assigned to receive repeated exposure (training) to either immediate tones, or tones delayed by 100 ms. Pre-training, N1 amplitude to delayed tones was significantly larger compared to immediate tones. However, while training to the immediate tone maintained a significant difference in N1 amplitude between the immediate and delayed tones post-training, this difference was eliminated when trained to the delayed tone. This suggests that participants' neural expectations regarding the anticipated timing of self-generated sensations can be modified with behavioural training. This result has implications for alleviating the subnormal sensory attenuation which has been observed in patients with schizophrenia.