It has been suggested that the visual system samples attended information rhythmically. Does rhythmic sampling also apply to distracting information? How do attended information and distracting information compete temporally for neural representations? We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from participants who detected instances of coherent motion in a random dot kinematogram (RDK; the target), overlayed on different categories (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant) of affective images from the International Affective System (IAPS) (the distractor). The moving dots were flickered at 4.29 Hz whereas the IAPS pictures were flickered at 6 Hz. The time course of EEG spectral power at 4.29 Hz was taken to index the temporal dynamics of target processing. The spatial pattern of the EEG spectral power at 6 Hz was similarly extracted and subjected to a moving-window MVPA decoding analysis to index the temporal dynamics of processing pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant distractor pictures. We found that (1) both target processing and distractor processing exhibited rhythmicity at ∼1 Hz and (2) the phase difference between the two rhythmic time courses were related to task performance, i.e., relative phase closer to π predicted a higher rate of coherent motion detection whereas relative phase closer to 0 predicted a lower rate of coherent motion detection. These results suggest that (1) in a target-distractor scenario, both attended and distracting information were sampled rhythmically and (2) the more target sampling and distractor sampling were separated in time within a sampling cycle, the less distraction effects were observed, both at the neural and the behavioral level.

EEG data was recorded using a 32-channel MR-compatible EEG recording system (Brain Products, Germany). The system was synchronized to the internal clock of the scanner to facilitate the subsequent scanner noise removal. Thirty-one Ag/AgCl electrodes were located on the scalp according to the 10–20 system via an elastic cap. One additional electrode was located on the participant’s upper back to record the electrocardiogram (ECG). Electrode FCz was used as the reference during recording. Impedances were kept below 20kΩ for all scalp electrodes and below 50kΩ for the ECG electrode, as suggested by the manufacturer. EEG data was digitized at 16-bit resolution and sampled at 5kHz with a 0.1- 250 Hz (3dB-point) bandpass filter applied online (Butterworth, 18 dB/octave roll off). The digitized data was transferred to a laptop computer via a fiber-optic cable.

Artifact removal from electroencephalogram (EEG) data, specifically magnetic gradient and cardioballistic artifacts, was conducted using the Brain Vision Analyzer 2.0 software (Brain Products GmbH). The elimination of magnetic gradient artifacts was based on an algorithm initially proposed by (Allen et al., 2000). The process involves the creation of an artifact template through averaging EEG data over 41 consecutive fMRI volumes, which was subsequently subtracted from the EEG recordings. Additionally, cardioballistic artifacts were removed by employing a technique developed by (Allen et al., 1998), in which R peaks were detected via the EKG electrode, and a corrective template were computed from 21 successive heart beats and subtracted from the EEG data.

Subsequent to scanner artifact removal, data was downsampled to 500 Hz and exported into EEGLab software. The data underwent further filtering using a 0.1 to 40 Hz band-pass Butterworth filter. Independent Components Analysis (ICA) was applied to remove components associated with eye blinks, horizontal eye movements, and residual cardioballistic artifacts. The data were then converted to the average reference.