The neural and perceptual effects of attention were traditionally assumed to be sustained over time, but recent work suggests that covert attention rhythmically switches between objects at 3–8 Hz. Here I use simulations to demonstrate that the analysis approaches commonly used to test for rhythmic oscillations generate false positives in the presence of aperiodic temporal structure. I then propose two alternative analyses that are better able to discriminate between periodic and aperiodic structure in time series. Finally, I apply these alternative analyses to published datasets and find no evidence for behavioural rhythms in attentional switching after accounting for aperiodic temporal structure. The techniques presented here will help clarify the periodic and aperiodic dynamics of perception and of cognition more broadly.

注意力的神经和知觉效应传统上被认为会随着时间的推移而持续，但最近的研究表明，隐蔽的注意力会以 3–8 Hz 的频率在物体之间有节奏地切换。在这里，我使用模拟来证明通常用于测试节律振荡的分析方法在存在非周期性时间结构的情况下会产生误报。然后，我提出了两种替代分析，它们能够更好地区分时间序列中的周期性和非周期性结构。最后，我将这些替代分析应用于已发布的数据集，并没有发现在考虑非周期性时间结构后注意力转换中的行为节律的证据。这里介绍的技术将有助于更广泛地阐明感知和认知的周期性和非周期性动态。