Young adults and multisensory time perception: Visual and auditory pathways in comparison

Abstract

The brain continuously encodes information about time. Nevertheless, the ways sensori-al channels interact to achieve a stable representation of such ubiquitous information is still a matter of debate. Research has revealed the presence of a potential interference in multisensory conditions, leading to a trade-off between two senses (sight and hearing), when considering time estimation tasks. The present study aimed at investigating behav-ioral peculiarities of human (healthy young adults) performances on a time estimation task. We manipulated the presence or absence of sensorial deprivation, considering two sensory (visual and auditory) modalities. Statistically significant results emerged when comparing the two pathways: subjects overestimated and showed a higher sensitivity to time in the auditory modality, compared to the visual modality. Moreover, the induction of a sensory deprivation, in both modalities, led to worse temporal performances. These re-sults can be interpreted as evidence of an optimal multisensory (audiovisual) integration in adulthood that leads to an increased sensitivity to time (lower Weber ratio). The contri-bution of sensory deprivation in explaining time estimation abilities of young healthy adults needs further investigation.