Continuous Carryover of Temporal Context Dissociates Response Bias from Perceptual Influence for Duration

Abstract

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.

Duration adaptation modulates EEG correlates of subsequent temporal encoding

“…For example, Wiener and colleagues devised an implicit memory model which assumes that the perception of duration depends on an adaptive memory prior (Wiener and Thompson, 2015;Wiener et al, 2014). That is, the memory prior could be continuously updated by prior duration and could serve as an internal standard for duration judgment.…”

“…Indeed, studies have shown that duration judgment follows the anchor rule: a short anchor lengthens the perceived duration of subsequent stimuli, whereas a long anchor shortens their perceived duration (Behar and Bevan, 1961;Goldstone et al, 1957;Postman and Miller, 1945). Since the duration aftereffect and the anchor effect present similar outcomes at the behavior level, some researchers suggested that these two phenomena may share the same mechanisms (Heron et al, 2012;Wiener, et al, 2014). However, results of Experiment 2 revealed that although a single anchor duration induced an anchor effect, this had no effect on the CNV amplitude evoked by the test stimulus.…”

“…These results imply different mechanisms underlying duration aftereffect and anchor effect, and suggest that the changes in CNV amplitude observed in Experiment 1 were not due to perceptual anchoring. It is likely that perceptual anchoring may affect the later stage of subsequent duration processing as assumed by the implicit memory model (Wiener and Thompson, 2015;Wiener, et al, 2014).…”

Duration Aftereffect Depends on the Duration of Adaptation

“…Previous studies also reported that a short anchor stimulus lengthens the perceived duration of subsequent medium duration stimuli, while a long anchor stimulus shortens their perceived duration, which suggested a repulsive duration anchor effect (Postman and Miller, 1945; Goldstone et al, 1957; Behar and Bevan, 1961). Because these two effects result in similar behavioral outcomes on duration perception, some speculated that these two phenomena might share the same mechanisms (Walker et al, 1981; Heron et al, 2012; Wiener et al, 2014). However, there is little direct evidence indicating whether the duration aftereffect is an instance of the duration anchor effect induced by altering the internal reference for duration judgment, or whether the duration anchor effect is an instance of the duration aftereffect induced by a rapid adaptation to duration, or whether they have distinct mechanisms.…”

“…It has been suggested that making decision about time relies not only on the current physical stimuli, but also on an internal reference for time judgment (Grondin, 2005; Dyjas et al, 2012; Bausenhart et al, 2014). For example, the implicit memory model recently suggested that the perception of duration is a noisy sensory process against an adaptive memory prior (Wiener et al, 2014; Wiener and Thompson, 2015). That is, the memory prior is continuously updated by prior durations within a memory window and may serve as an internal reference for duration judgment.…”