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Duration judgments are mediated by the similarity with the temporal context.

ABSTRACT: When we try to assess the duration of an event, we are often affected by external information. Studies on multiple timing have found that simultaneous timing information can produce an averaging or central tendency effect, where the perceived duration of the elements tends to be biased towards a general average. We wanted to assess how this effect induced by simultaneous distractors could depend on the temporal similarity between stimuli. We used a duration judgment task in which participants (n = 22) had to compare the duration of two identical targets (1 s) accompanied by simultaneous distractors of different durations (0.3, 0.7, 1.5 or 3 s). We found a central tendency effect, where duration judgments of the target were systematically biased towards the duration of the distractors that accompanied them. We put forward a model based on the concept of duration-channels that can explain the central tendency effect with only one estimated parameter. This parameter modulates the rate of decay of this effect as distractors duration become more different than the duration of the target.

SUBMITTER: Boned J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9803681 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Duration judgments are mediated by the similarity with the temporal context.

Boned Jaume J López-Moliner Joan J

Scientific reports 20221230 1

When we try to assess the duration of an event, we are often affected by external information. Studies on multiple timing have found that simultaneous timing information can produce an averaging or central tendency effect, where the perceived duration of the elements tends to be biased towards a general average. We wanted to assess how this effect induced by simultaneous distractors could depend on the temporal similarity between stimuli. We used a duration judgment task in which participants (n ...[more]

PMID: 36585445

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Project description:Recent experimental evidence suggests that the perception of temporal intervals is influenced by the temporal context in which they are presented. A longstanding example is the time-order-error, wherein the perception of two intervals relative to one another is influenced by the order in which they are presented. Here, we test whether the perception of temporal intervals in an absolute judgment task is influenced by the preceding temporal context. Human subjects participated in a temporal bisection task with no anchor durations (partition method). Intervals were demarcated by a Gaussian blob (visual condition) or burst of white noise (auditory condition) that persisted for one of seven logarithmically spaced sub-second intervals. Crucially, the order in which stimuli were presented was first-order counterbalanced, allowing us to measure the carryover effect of every successive combination of intervals. The results demonstrated a number of distinct findings. First, the perception of each interval was biased by the prior response, such that each interval was judged similarly to the preceding trial. Second, the perception of each interval was also influenced by the prior interval, such that perceived duration shifted away from the preceding interval. Additionally, the effect of decision bias was larger for visual intervals, whereas auditory intervals engendered greater perceptual carryover. We quantified these effects by designing a biologically-inspired computational model that measures noisy representations of time against an adaptive memory prior while simultaneously accounting for uncertainty, consistent with a Bayesian heuristic. We found that our model could account for all of the effects observed in human data. Additionally, our model could only accommodate both carryover effects when uncertainty and memory were calculated separately, suggesting separate neural representations for each. These findings demonstrate that time is susceptible to similar carryover effects as other basic stimulus attributes, and that the brain rapidly adapts to temporal context.

Project description:Integrating visual and tactile information in the temporal domain is critical for active perception. To accomplish this, coordinated timing is required. Here, we study perceived duration within and across these two modalities. Specifically, we examined how duration comparisons within and across vision and touch were influenced by temporal context and presentation order using a two-interval forced choice task. We asked participants to compare the duration of two temporal intervals defined by tactile or visual events. Two constant standard durations (700 ms and 1,000 ms in 'shorter' sessions; 1,000 ms and 1,500 ms in 'longer' sessions) were compared to variable comparison durations in different sessions. In crossmodal trials, standard and comparison durations were presented in different modalities, whereas in the intramodal trials, the two durations were presented in the same modality. The standard duration was either presented first (<sc>) or followed the comparison duration (<cs>). In both crossmodal and intramodal conditions, we found that the longer standard duration was overestimated in <cs> trials and underestimated in <sc> trials whereas the estimation of shorter standard duration was unbiased. Importantly, the estimation of 1,000ms was biased when it was the longer standard duration within the shorter sessions but not when it was the shorter standard duration within the longer sessions, indicating an effect of temporal context. The effects of presentation order can be explained by a central tendency effect applied in different ways to different presentation orders. Both crossmodal and intramodal conditions showed better discrimination performance for <sc> trials than <cs> trials, supporting the Type B effect for both crossmodal and intramodal duration comparison. Moreover, these results were not dependent on whether the standard duration was defined using tactile or visual stimuli. Overall, our results indicate that duration comparison between vision and touch is dependent on presentation order and temporal context, but not modality.

Dataset Information

Duration judgments are mediated by the similarity with the temporal context.

Publications

Duration judgments are mediated by the similarity with the temporal context.

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