Auditory Rate Perception Displays a Positive Serial Dependence

We investigated perceived timing in auditory rate perception using a reproduction task. The study aimed to test (a) whether central tendency occurs in rate perception, as shown for interval timing, and (b) whether rate is perceived independently on each trial or shows a serial dependence, as shown for other perceptual attributes. Participants were well able to indicate perceived rate as reproduced and presented rates were linearly related with a slope that approached unity, although tapping significantly overestimated presented rates. While the slopes approached unity, they were significantly less than 1, indicating a central tendency in which reproduced rates tended towards the mean of the presented range. We tested for serial dependency by seeing if current trial rate reproductions depended on the preceding rate. In two conditions, a positive dependence was observed. A third condition in which participants withheld responses on every second trial produced a negative dependency. These results suggest separate components of serial dependence linked to stimulus and response: Withholding responses reveals a negative perceptual effect, whereas making responses adds a stronger positive effect that is postperceptual and makes the combined effect positive. Together, these data show that auditory rate perception exhibits both central tendency and serial dependence effects.

Auditory Driving in Cinematic Art

Although the visual modality often dominates the auditory one, one exception occurs in the presence of tempo discrepancies between the two perceptual systems: variations in auditory rate typically have a greater influence on perceived visual rate than vice versa. This phenomenon, termed “auditory driving,” is investigated here through certain techniques used in cinematic art. Experiments 1 and 2 relied on montages (slideshows) of still photos accompanied by musical selections in which the perceived rate of one modality was assessed through a recognition task while the rate of the other modality was systematically varied. A similar methodological strategy was used in Experiments 3 and 4 in which film excerpts of various moving objects were accompanied by the sounds they typically produce. In both cases, auditory dominance was observed, which has implications at both a theoretical and applied level.