  We calculate the transient absorption of an isolated attosecond pulse by
helium atoms subject to a delayed infrared (\ir) laser pulse. With the central
frequency of the broad attosecond spectrum near the ionization threshold, the
absorption spectrum is strongly modulated at the sub-\ir-cycle level. Given
that the absorption spectrum results from a time-integrated measurement, we
investigate the extent to which the delay-dependence of the absorption yields
information about the attosecond dynamics of the atom-field energy exchange. We
find two configurations in which this is possible. The first involves multi
photon transitions between bound states that result in interference between
different excitation pathways. The other involves the modification of the bound
state absorption lines by the IR field, which we find can result in a sub-cycle
time dependence only when ionization limits the duration of the strong field
interaction.
