Investigating the flexibility of attentional orienting in multiple modalities: Are spatial and temporal cues used in the context of spatiotemporal probabilities?

Attention can be oriented in both space and time in response to trial-variant cues when, say, their colour predicts the spatial location and their shape predicts cue-to-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), producing spatial and temporal cueing effects [faster response times (RTs) on validly- than invalidly-cued trials]. We investigated whether spatial and temporal cueing effects are found when spatiotemporal probability is also known (e.g., targets typically occur on the left at short SOAs and on the right at long SOAs; a trial-invariant cue). Temporal cueing effects were found in hit rates at long SOAs. Spatiotemporal probability validity effects were observed in RTs at both SOAs. Spatial cueing effects were observed in RTs except on short SOA trials when spatiotemporal probability was invalid. Our results show that participants can use the benefits of both trial-invariant (spatiotemporal probability) and trial-variant spatial and temporal cues, implicating a flexible, plastic, attentional orienting system.