The reset effect of attention depends on the phase of ongoing attention oscillation

A peripheral cue is believed to reset the phase of ongoing attention oscillation to the cued location. In the current study, we tested whether the reset effect of attention depends on the phase of ongoing attention oscillation. We devised a two-cue-1-probe behavioral paradigm to measure this effect. The first cue was used to trigger rhythmic attention sampling between two locations, the second cue was presented at two opposing phases of the rhythm, when attention was sampling either the same (in-phase) or opposing (out-of-phase) side of the first cue. The probe was presented at variable SOAs at 25-ms interval to measure the time course of reaction time. The two phases for presenting the second cue were determined by a pilot experiment in which only the first cue and the probe was presented. The results from a sample of 20 university students revealed that the amplitude of oscillation was enhanced when the second cue was presented in-phase with the attention sampling. Interestingly, when the second cue was presented out-of-phase or opposite to the currently sampled location, it reduced the amplitude of ongoing attention oscillation rather than reset the sampling of attention to the cued location. Taken together, these results suggest that the effect of reset event on attention sampling depends on the phase of ongoing attention oscillation.