scholarly journals Change biases identify the features that drive time perception

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
wouter kruijne ◽  
Hedderik van Rijn
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Repetition Suppression ◽  
Visual Markers ◽  
Sense Of Time ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Drive Time ◽  
Perceived Duration ◽  
Temporal Illusions

[This paper has not been peer reviewed. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission.] Time perception is malleable, and the perceived duration of stimuli can be strongly affected by the sensory response they evoke. Such ‘temporal illusions’ provide a window on how different sensory systems contribute to our sense of time. Evidence suggests that the sensory response to different features affects time perception to different extents, mediated by the level of arousal or surprise that they evoke. This, however, makes it difficult to disentangle effects of the sensory response itself from the derived arousal or surprise effects. Here, we demonstrate that time perception is differentially affected by different stimulus features when arousal and surprise are kept constant. In four temporal discrimination experiments, participants judged the duration of an interval marked by two briefly presented visual markers. Markers either repeated or changed along one of six feature dimensions, in a manner fully predictable to participants. Repetitions and changes would modulate sensory response magnitudes due to neural repetition suppression. Results showed that intervals were perceived as longer when markers changed in location, size or numerosity. Conversely, changes in face identity, orientation or luminance did not affect time perception. These results point to neural and functional selectivity in the way different stimulus features affect time perception.

scholarly journals Neural Repetition Suppression Modulates Time Perception: Evidence From Electrophysiology and Pupillometry

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Wouter Kruijne ◽  
Christian N. L. Olivers ◽  
Hedderik van Rijn
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Temporal Perception ◽  
Sensory Magnitude ◽  
Repetition Suppression ◽  
Pupil Constriction ◽  
Sensory Responses ◽  
First Time ◽  
Temporal Illusions

Abstract Human time perception is malleable and subject to many biases. For example, it has repeatedly been shown that stimuli that are physically intense or that are unexpected seem to last longer. Two competing hypotheses have been proposed to account for such biases: One states that these temporal illusions are the result of increased levels of arousal that speeds up neural clock dynamics, whereas the alternative “magnitude coding” account states that the magnitude of sensory responses causally modulates perceived durations. Common experimental paradigms used to study temporal biases cannot dissociate between these accounts, as arousal and sensory magnitude covary and modulate each other. Here, we present two temporal discrimination experiments where two flashing stimuli demarcated the start and end of a to-be-timed interval. These stimuli could be either in the same or a different location, which led to different sensory responses because of neural repetition suppression. Crucially, changes and repetitions were fully predictable, which allowed us to explore effects of sensory response magnitude without changes in arousal or surprise. Intervals with changing markers were perceived as lasting longer than those with repeating markers. We measured EEG (Experiment 1) and pupil size (Experiment 2) and found that temporal perception was related to changes in ERPs (P2) and pupil constriction, both of which have been related to responses in the sensory cortex. Conversely, correlates of surprise and arousal (P3 amplitude and pupil dilation) were unaffected by stimulus repetitions and changes. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that sensory magnitude affects time perception even under constant levels of arousal.

scholarly journals Neural repetition suppression modulates time perception: evidence from electrophysiology and pupillometry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wouter Kruijne ◽  
Christian N. L. Olivers ◽  
Hedderik van Rijn
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Sensory Magnitude ◽  
Repetition Suppression ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Pupil Constriction ◽  
Sensory Responses ◽  
First Time

AbstractHuman time perception is malleable and subject to many biases. For example, it has repeatedly been shown that stimuli that are physically intense or that are unexpected seem to last longer. Two competing hypotheses have been proposed to account for such biases: one states that these temporal illusions are the result of increased levels of arousal which speeds up neural clock dynamics, whereas the alternative ‘magnitude coding’ account states that the magnitude of sensory responses causally modulates perceived durations. Common experimental paradigms used to study temporal biases can not dissociate between these accounts, as arousal and sensory magnitude covary and modulate each other. Here, we present two temporal discrimination experiments where two flashing stimuli demarcated the start and end of a to-be-timed interval. These stimuli could either be in the same or in a different location, which led to different sensory responses due to neural repetition suppression. Crucially, changes and repetitions were fully predictable, which allowed us explore effects of sensory response magnitude without impacting arousal or surprise. Intervals with changing markers were perceived as lasting longer than those with repeating markers. We measured EEG (Experiment 1) and pupil size (Experiment 2), and found that temporal perception was related to changes in event-related potentials (P2) and pupil constriction, both of which have been related to responses in sensory cortex. Conversely, correlates of surprise and arousal (P3 amplitude and pupil dilation) were unaffected by stimulus repetitions and changes. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that sensory magnitude affects time perception even under constant levels of arousal.

Variable Foreperiods and Temporal Discrimination

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Grondin ◽  
Thomas Rammsayer
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Temporal Information ◽  
Temporal Information Processing ◽  
Visual Markers ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Base Duration ◽  
Perceived Duration

Temporal judgements are often accounted for by a single-clock hypothesis. The output of such a clock is reported to depend on the allocation of attention. In the present series of experiments, the influence of attention on temporal information processing is investigated by systematic variations of the period preceding brief empty intervals to be judged. Two indicators of timing performance, temporal sensitivity, reflecting discrimination performance, and perceived duration served as dependent variables. Foreperiods ranged from 0.3 to 0.6 s in Experiments 1 to 4. When the foreperiod varied randomly from trial to trial, perceived duration was longer with increasing length of foreperiod (Experiments 1 and 3 with brief auditory markers and Experiment 4 with brief visual markers), an effect that disappeared with no trial-to-trial variations (Experiment 2). Longer foreperiods also enhanced performance on temporal discrimination of auditory empty intervals with a base duration of 100 ms (Experiments 1 and 5), whereas discrimination performance was unaffected for auditory intervals with a base duration of 500 ms (Experiment 3). The variable-foreperiod effect on perceived duration also held when foreperiods ranged from 0.6 to 1.5 s (Experiments 5—7). Findings suggest that foreperiods appear to effectively modulate attention mechanisms necessary for temporal information processing. However, alternative explanations such as assimilation or compatibility effects cannot be totally discarded.

scholarly journals Separable temporal metrics for time perception and anticipatory actions

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1730) ◽  
pp. 854-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Welber Marinovic ◽  
Derek H. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Prolonged Exposure ◽  
Motion Adaptation ◽  
Rapid Motion ◽  
Apparent Duration ◽  
Sense Of Time ◽  
Interceptive Actions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Perceived Speed ◽  
Perceived Duration

Reliable estimates of time are essential for initiating interceptive actions at the right moment. However, our sense of time is surprisingly fallible. For instance, time perception can be distorted by prolonged exposure (adaptation) to movement. Here, we make use of this to determine if time perception and anticipatory actions rely on the same or on different temporal metrics. Consistent with previous reports, we find that the apparent duration of movement is mitigated by adaptation to more rapid motion, but is unchanged by adaptation to slower movement. By contrast, we find symmetrical effects of motion-adaptation on the timing of anticipatory interceptive actions, which are paralleled by changes in perceived speed for the adapted direction of motion. Our data thus reveal that anticipatory actions and perceived duration rely on different temporal metrics.

scholarly journals Perceptual Content, Not Physiological Signals, Determines Perceived Duration When Viewing Dynamic, Natural Scenes

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Suárez-Pinilla ◽  
Kyriacos Nikiforou ◽  
Zafeirios Fountas ◽  
Anil K. Seth ◽  
Warrick Roseboom
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Physiological Signals ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Natural Scenes ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Physiological Factors ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
Scene Content ◽  
Perceived Duration

The neural basis of time perception remains unknown. A prominent account is the pacemaker-accumulator model, wherein regular ticks of some physiological or neural pacemaker are read out as time. Putative candidates for the pacemaker have been suggested in physiological processes (heartbeat), or dopaminergic mid-brain neurons, whose activity has been associated with spontaneous blinking. However, such proposals have difficulty accounting for observations that time perception varies systematically with perceptual content. We examined physiological influences on human duration estimates for naturalistic videos between 1–64 seconds using cardiac and eye recordings. Duration estimates were biased by the amount of change in scene content. Contrary to previous claims, heart rate, and blinking were not related to duration estimates. Our results support a recent proposal that tracking change in perceptual classification networks provides a basis for human time perception, and suggest that previous assertions of the importance of physiological factors should be tempered.

scholarly journals Neural Correlates of Temporal Presentness in the Precuneus: A Cross-linguistic fMRI Study based on Speech Stimuli

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Long Tang ◽  
Toshimitsu Takahashi ◽  
Tamami Shimada ◽  
Masayuki Komachi ◽  
Noriko Imanishi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Time Perception ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Verb Tense ◽  
Japanese English

Abstract The position of any event in time could be in the present, past, or future. This temporal discrimination is vitally important in our daily conversations, but it remains elusive how the human brain distinguishes among the past, present, and future. To address this issue, we searched for neural correlates of presentness, pastness, and futurity, each of which is automatically evoked when we hear sentences such as “it is raining now,” “it rained yesterday,” or “it will rain tomorrow.” Here, we show that sentences that evoked “presentness” activated the bilateral precuneus more strongly than those that evoked “pastness” or “futurity.” Interestingly, this contrast was shared across native speakers of Japanese, English, and Chinese languages, which vary considerably in their verb tense systems. The results suggest that the precuneus serves as a key region that provides the origin (that is, the Now) of our time perception irrespective of differences in tense systems across languages.

scholarly journals Aesthetic Preference and Time: Preferred Painting Dilates Time Perception

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402093990
Author(s):  
Lingjing Li ◽  
Yu Tian
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Reproduction Task ◽  
Aesthetic Preference ◽  
Temporal Reproduction ◽  
Time Perceptions ◽  
Aesthetic Preferences ◽  
Perceived Duration

In the domain of aesthetic preference, previous studies focused primarily on exploring the factors that influence aesthetic preference while neglecting to investigate whether aesthetic preference affects other psychological activities. This study sought to expand our understanding of time perception by examining whether aesthetic preference in viewing paintings influenced its perceived duration. Participants who preferred Chinese paintings ( n = 20) and participants who preferred western paintings ( n = 21) were recruited to complete a temporal reproduction task that measured their time perception of Chinese paintings and of western paintings. The results showed that participants who preferred Chinese paintings exhibited longer time perceptions for Chinese paintings than for western paintings, while the participants who preferred western paintings exhibited longer time perceptions for western paintings than for Chinese paintings. These results suggested that aesthetic preference could modulate our perceived duration of painting presentation. Specifically, individuals perceive longer painting presentation durations when exposed to the stimuli matching their aesthetic preferences.

scholarly journals The Varying Coherences of Implied Motion Modulates the Subjective Time Perception

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feiming Li ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Lei Jia ◽  
Jiahao Lu ◽  
Youping Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Implied Motion ◽  
Experience Of Time ◽  
Standard Duration ◽  
Mediating Factor ◽  
Temporal Bisection Task ◽  
Coherence Level ◽  
Perceived Duration

Previous research has demonstrated that duration of implied motion (IM) was dilated, whereas hMT+ activity related to perceptual processes on IM stimuli could be modulated by their motion coherence. Based on these findings, the present study aimed to examine whether subjective time perception of IM stimuli would be influenced by varying coherence levels. A temporal bisection task was used to measure the subjective experience of time, in which photographic stimuli showing a human moving in four directions (left, right, toward, or away from the viewer) were presented as probe stimuli. The varying coherence of these IM stimuli was manipulated by changing the percentage of pictures implying movement in one direction. Participants were required to judge whether the duration of probe stimulus was more similar to the long or short pre-presented standard duration. As predicted, the point of subjective equality was significantly modulated by the varying coherence of the IM stimuli, but not for no-IM stimuli. This finding suggests that coherence level might be a key mediating factor for perceived duration of IM images, and top-down perceptual stream from inferred motion could influence subjective experience of time perception.

scholarly journals Similar CNV Neurodynamic Patterns between Sub- and Supra-Second Time Perception

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1362
Author(s):  
Mingming Zhang ◽  
Keye Zhang ◽  
Xing Zhou ◽  
Bin Zhan ◽  
Weiqi He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Functional Significance ◽  
Contingent Negative Variation ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Peak Latency ◽  
Standard Interval ◽  
Comparison Interval ◽  
Processing Mechanisms

In the field of time psychology, the functional significance of the contingent negative variation (CNV) component in time perception and whether the processing mechanisms of sub- and supra-second are similar or different still remain unclear. In the present study, event-related potential (ERP) technology and classical temporal discrimination tasks were used to explore the neurodynamic patterns of sub- and supra-second time perception. In Experiment 1, the standard interval (SI) was fixed at 500 ms, and the comparison interval (CI) ranged from 200 ms to 800 ms. In Experiment 2, the SI was fixed at 2000 ms, and the CI ranged from 1400 ms to 2600 ms. Participants were required to judge whether the CI was longer or shorter than the SI. The ERP results showed similar CNV activity patterns in the two experiments. Specifically, CNV amplitude would be more negative when the CI was longer or closer to the memorized SI. CNV peak latency increased significantly until the CI reached the memorized SI. We propose that CNV amplitude might reflect the process of temporal comparison, and CNV peak latency might represent the process of temporal decision-making. To our knowledge, it is the first ERP task explicitly testing the two temporal scales, sub- and supra-second timing, in one study. Taken together, the present study reveals a similar functional significance of CNV between sub- and supra-second time perception.

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