Temporal bisection is influenced by ensemble statistics of the stimulus set
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Temporal bisection is influenced by ensemble statistics of the stimulus set Xiuna Zhu 1 & Cemre Baykan 1 & Hermann J. Müller 1 & Zhuanghua Shi 1 Accepted: 1 November 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Although humans are well capable of precise time measurement, their duration judgments are nevertheless susceptible to temporal context. Previous research on temporal bisection has shown that duration comparisons are influenced by both stimulus spacing and ensemble statistics. However, theories proposed to account for bisection performance lack a plausible justification of how the effects of stimulus spacing and ensemble statistics are actually combined in temporal judgments. To explain the various contextual effects in temporal bisection, we develop a unified ensemble-distribution account (EDA), which assumes that the mean and variance of the duration set serve as a reference, rather than the short and long standards, in duration comparison. To validate this account, we conducted three experiments that varied the stimulus spacing (Experiment 1), the frequency of the probed durations (Experiment 2), and the variability of the probed durations (Experiment 3). The results revealed significant shifts of the bisection point in Experiments 1 and 2, and a change of the sensitivity of temporal judgments in Experiment 3— which were all well predicted by EDA. In fact, comparison of EDA to the extant prior accounts showed that using ensemble statistics can parsimoniously explain various stimulus set-related factors (e.g., spacing, frequency, variance) that influence temporal judgments. Keywords Temporal bisection . Stimulus spacing . Central tendency . Ensemble perception
We as humans have the ability to perceive the passage of time relatively accurately. Our sense of time allows us to adapt to and interact with a dynamic external world. As has been suggested in classical ‘internal-clock’ models (Gibbon, Church, & Meck, 1984; Treisman, 1963), our ability to time (experienced) events in the external world is based on an internal timer. Although there is no physical timer in our brain, behavioral studies have shown the internal-clock model can explain many empirical findings and predict the key feature of time perception: the scalar property (i.e., the Weber scaling). However, more and more evidence shows that, even though we are well capable of time measurement, we are still prone to biases in our timing that depend on both internal states (e.g., mental load, attention, emotional state) and external contexts (Allman & Meck, 2012; Allman, Teki, Griffiths, & Meck, 2014; Pronin, 2013).
* Zhuanghua Shi [email protected] 1
General and Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, 80802 Munich, Germany
One prominent contextual bias in time perception, which has been puzzling for more than a century and half, is the central-tendency effect: Duration judgments are assimilated to the center of the sample durations. Thus, for example, when asked to reproduce a series of time intervals, participants judge long dura
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