Testing the Role of Temporal Attention in Speech: Pretarget Alpha Predicts Memory Encoding Rather Than Effects of Linguistic Focus

Abstract

The rapid, continuous flow of speech often places strong demands on attention. Listeners are thought to meet these demands by using linguistic focus cues to predict when important information will occur and to allocate temporal attention accordingly. Yet, direct neural evidence for focus-driven modulations of preparatory attention is lacking. We address this gap by measuring EEG alpha power (8–13 Hz), an index of temporal attentional preparation ( N  = 40; 26 females, 12 males, 2 nonbinary). Using an auditory question–answer paradigm, we tested whether pretarget alpha power tracks the temporal prioritization of focused words in the discourse. We found that pretarget alpha was comparable before focused and defocused words, inconsistent with the view that attention is temporally preallocated to discourse-relevant information. Instead, trial-by-trial fluctuations in pretarget alpha modulated a centroparietal ERP subsequent memory effect for focused words, linking preparatory attention to the depth of processing and memory encoding during comprehension. These findings constrain theories of attention in language, indicating that alpha-band activity primarily indexes an encoding-ready state that predicts subsequent memory rather than focus-driven temporal attentional preallocation.