Behavioral consequences and neural underpinnings of visuospatial attention have long been investigated. Classical studies using the Posner paradigm have found that visual perception systematically benefits from the use of a spatially informative cue pointing to the to-be-attended spatial location, compared with a noninformative cue. Lateralized α amplitude modulation during visuospatial attention shifts has been suggested to account for such perceptual gain. However, recent studies on spontaneous fluctuations of prestimulus α amplitude have challenged this notion. These studies showed that spontaneous fluctuations of prestimulus α amplitude were associated with the subjective appreciation of stimulus occurrence, while objective accuracy was instead best predicted by the frequency of α oscillations, with faster prestimulus α frequency accounting for better perceptual performance. Here, in male and female humans, by using an informative cue in anticipation of lateralized stimulus presentation, we found that the predictive cue not only modulates preparatory α amplitude but also α frequency in a retinotopic manner. Behaviorally, the cue significantly impacted subjective performance measures (metacognitive abilities [meta-d']) and objective performance gain (d'). Importantly, α amplitude directly accounted for confidence levels, with ipsilateral synchronization and contralateral desynchronization coding for high-confidence responses. Crucially, the contralateral α amplitude selectively predicted interindividual differences in metacognitive abilities (meta-d'), thus anticipating decision strategy and not perceptual sensitivity, probably via excitability modulations. Instead, higher perceptual accuracy both within and across participants (d') was associated with faster contralateral α frequency, likely by implementing higher sampling at the attended location. These findings provide critical new insights into the neural mechanisms of attention control and its perceptual consequences.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Prior knowledge serves the anticipation of sensory input to reduce sensory ambiguity. The growing interest in the neural mechanisms governing the integration of sensory input into our internal representations has highlighted a pivotal role of brain oscillations. Here we show that distinct but interacting oscillatory mechanisms are engaged during attentional deployment: one relying on α amplitude modulations and reflecting internal decision processes, associated with subjective perceptual experience and metacognitive abilities; the other relying on α frequency modulations and enabling mechanistic sampling of the sensory input at the attended location to influence objective performance. These insights are crucial for understanding how we reduce sensory ambiguity to maximize the efficiency of our conscious experience, but also in interpreting the mechanisms of atypical perceptual experiences.

视觉空间注意力的行为后果和神经基础早已被研究过。使用波斯纳范式的经典研究发现，与非信息性线索相比，视觉感知系统地受益于使用指向待关注空间位置的空间信息性线索。有人建议在视觉空间注意力转移期间进行偏侧化α幅度调制来解释这种感知增益。然而，最近关于刺激前 α 振幅自发波动的研究对这一概念提出了挑战。这些研究表明，刺激前 α 振幅的自发波动与刺激发生的主观评价有关，而客观准确性最好通过 α 振荡的频率来预测，刺激前 α 频率越快，感知性能越好。在这里，在男性和女性中，通过使用信息提示来预测偏侧刺激呈现，我们发现预测提示不仅以视网膜专题方式调节预备α振幅，还调节α频率。在行为上，提示显着影响主观绩效衡量（元认知能力[meta- d' ]）和客观绩效增益（ d' ）。重要的是，α 幅度直接影响置信水平，同侧同步和对侧去同步编码可实现高置信度响应。至关重要的是，对侧α振幅选择性地预测了元认知能力（meta- d' ）的个体间差异，从而预测决策策略而不是感知敏感性，这可能是通过兴奋性调节来实现的。 相反，参与者内部和参与者之间更高的感知准确性（ d' ）与更快的对侧α频率相关，这可能是通过在参与位置实施更高的采样来实现的。这些发现为注意力控制的神经机制及其感知后果提供了重要的新见解。

意义陈述先验知识服务于感觉输入的预期，以减少感觉模糊性。人们对控制感觉输入整合到我们内部表征的神经机制越来越感兴趣，这凸显了大脑振荡的关键作用。在这里，我们表明，在注意力部署过程中存在着不同但相互作用的振荡机制：一种依赖于α幅度调制并反映内部决策过程，与主观知觉经验和元认知能力相关；另一种依赖于 α 频率调制，并在值守位置对感官输入进行机械采样，以影响客观表现。这些见解对于理解我们如何减少感官模糊性以最大限度地提高意识体验的效率至关重要，而且对于解释非典型知觉体验的机制也至关重要。