Reuben Rideaux^1,2, Kacie Lee¹; ¹University of Sydney, ²University of Queensland

Past sensory experiences influence perception of the present. Multiple research subfields have emerged to study this phenomenon at different temporal scales. These phenomena fall into three categories: the influence of immediately preceding sensory events (micro), expectations established by short sequences of events (meso), and regularities over long sequences of events (macro). In a single paradigm, we examined the influence of temporal context on perception at each scale. By integrating behavioural, electroencephalographical, and pupillometry recordings, we identify two distinct mechanisms that operate across all scales. The first is moderated by attention and supports rapid motor responses to expected events. The second operates independently of task-demands and dampens the feedforward neural responses produced by expected events, leading to unexpected events eliciting earlier and more precise neural representations. We further show that perceptual recall of sensory events exclusively reflects neural representations during this initial feedforward stage and that recall biases towards previous events (serial dependence) is explained by expectation of sensory stability over time.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards awarded to RR (DE210100790) a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC; Australia) Investigator Grant (2026318).