Orienting attention in time enables us to prepare for forthcoming perception and action (e.g., estimating the duration of a yellow traffic light when driving). While temporal orienting can facilitate performance on simple tasks, its influence on complex tasks involving response conflict is unclear. Here, we adapted the flanker paradigm to a choice-reaching task where participants used a computer mouse to reach to the left or right side of the screen, as indicated by the central arrow presented with either the congruent or incongruent flankers. We assessed the effects of temporal orienting by manipulating goal-driven temporal expectation (using probabilistic variations in target timing) and stimulus-driven temporal priming (using sequential repetitions versus switches in target timing). We tested how temporal orienting influenced the dynamics of response conflict resolution. Recent choice-reaching studies have indicated that under response conflict, delayed movement initiation captures the response threshold adjustment process, whereas increased curvature toward the incorrect response captures the degree of coactivation of the response alternatives during the controlled response selection process. Both temporal expectation and priming reduced the initiation latency regardless of response conflict, suggesting that both lowered response thresholds independently of response conflict. Notably, temporal expectation, but not temporal priming, increased the curvature toward the incorrect response on incongruent trials. These results suggest that temporal orienting generally increases motor preparedness, but goal-driven temporal orienting particularly interferes with response conflict resolution, likely through its influence on response thresholds. Overall, our study highlights the interplay between temporal orienting and cognitive control in goal-directed action.

及时调整注意力使我们能够为即将到来的感知和行动做好准备（例如，估计驾驶时黄色交通灯的持续时间）。虽然时间定向可以促进简单任务的表现，但它对涉及响应冲突的复杂任务的影响尚不清楚。在这里，我们将侧翼范式适应了一项选择到达任务，其中参与者使用计算机鼠标到达屏幕的左侧或右侧，如带有一致或不一致侧翼的中心箭头所示。我们通过操纵目标驱动的时间期望（使用目标时间的概率变化）和刺激驱动的时间启动（使用目标时间的顺序重复与切换）来评估时间定向的效果。我们测试了时间定向如何影响响​​应冲突解决的动态。最近的选择达成研究表明，在反应冲突下，延迟的运动启动捕获了反应阈值调整过程，而向错误反应增加的曲率捕获了受控反应选择过程中反应替代方案的共激活程度。无论反应冲突如何，时间预期和启动都减少了启动潜伏期，这表明两者都降低了独立于反应冲突的反应阈值。值得注意的是，时间预期，而不是时间启动，增加了不一致试验中错误反应的曲率。这些结果表明，时间定向通常会增加运动准备，但目标驱动的时间定向尤其会干扰反应冲突的解决，可能是通过影响反应阈值来实现的。 总的来说，我们的研究强调了目标导向行动中时间定向和认知控制之间的相互作用。