Figure 3. Triggering target stimuli on specific brain states influences behavior.

A: Incidence of neural bias states co-vary with attentional cue, confirming the robustness of the online state selection algorithm during test runs. Despite fixed thresholds and parameters for selecting brain states for each subject, leftward neural bias (“state L”) occurred more often than rightward neural bias (“state R”) during the attend-left condition (“cue L”, 1^st and 2^nd bars from left). Similar results were obtained for attend-right condition (middle bars), and when combined across cue conditions. Thus, moments of correctly directed neural bias (“STATE=CUE”) occurred more frequently than moments of incorrectly directed neural bias (“STATE≠CUE”). Data combined from 21 subjects. B. Excess incidence (above chance) of correctly directed bias states (gray arrow in A), across subjects. C. Despite identical cue conditions, detection of a target at the cued ear (‘hit rate’) was higher when the target was triggered by a correctly vs. incorrectly directed neural bias state. D. Reported detection of targets on catch trials lacking deviant sounds (‘false alarm rate’) was also increased following strong neural bias towards the cued ear. Panels B and C have same nomenclature as in A. Note that the same neural bias state had opposite effects on behavior for attend-left and attend-right cue conditions.