An investigation of the spatial selectivity of the duration after-effect

Abstract

a b s t r a c tAdaptation to the duration of a visual stimulus causes the perceived duration of a subsequently presented stimulus with a slightly different duration to be skewed away from the adapted duration. This pattern of repulsion following adaptation is similar to that observed for other visual properties, such as orientation, and is considered evidence for the involvement of duration-selective mechanisms in duration encoding. Here, we investigated whether the encoding of duration -by duration-selective mechanisms -occurs early on in the visual processing hierarchy. To this end, we investigated the spatial specificity of the duration after-effect in two experiments. We measured the duration after-effect at adapter-test distances ranging between 0 and 15°of visual angle and for within-and between-hemifield presentations. We replicated the duration after-effect: the test stimulus was perceived to have a longer duration following adaptation to a shorter duration, and a shorter duration following adaptation to a longer duration. Importantly, this duration after-effect occurred at all measured distances, with no evidence for a decrease in the magnitude of the after-effect at larger distances or across hemifields. This shows that adaptation to duration does not result from adaptation occurring early on in the visual processing hierarchy. Instead, it seems likely that duration information is a high-level stimulus property that is encoded later on in the visual processing hierarchy.

Attention Gates the Selective Encoding of Duration

“…Since we found that the DAE reflected the attended duration and not the unattended duration (a 100% relative contribution of attended durations), our results support the notion that duration is a complex feature encoded by mechanisms located at higher-level areas of the processing hierarchy. This conclusion is in line with recent studies demonstrating low spatial selectivity of the duration after-effect 24 , 38 . This finding indicate that duration-selective neurons possess relatively large receptive fields, again suggesting a locus in higher-level areas of the processing hierarchy 24 .…”

“…This conclusion is in line with recent studies demonstrating low spatial selectivity of the duration after-effect 24 , 38 . This finding indicate that duration-selective neurons possess relatively large receptive fields, again suggesting a locus in higher-level areas of the processing hierarchy 24 .…”

“…This finding that attention modulates the DAE is in line with effects of attentional selection on adaptation for non-temporal feature information 4 – 7 . Interestingly, the magnitude of attentional modulation is similar in magnitude to the after-effects obtained by studies using adaptation to only a single stream of durations 24 . This suggests that the modulatory strength of attention is relatively large and that unattended durations might not contribute to the measured DAE.…”

“…These distances and locations were selected so that participants could clearly distinguish each stream and the test stimuli. Additionally, we used this spatial setup to reduce adaptation to the non-temporal stimulus features of each stream 42 , while still assuring that adaptation to duration at both stream locations could be measured at the test location 24 .…”

Distinct temporal mechanisms modulate numerosity perception

“…Even brief adaptation to a visual numerosity changes the perception of a subsequently viewed numerosity at the same location Castaldi, Aagten-Murphy, Tosetti, Burr, & Morrone, 2016). Likewise, time is also susceptible to adaptation, with adaptation to a previous duration influencing the perception of a subsequently presented duration (Becker & Rasmussen, 2007;Heron et al, 2012;Heron, Hotchkiss, Aaen-Stockdale, Roach, & Whitaker, 2013;Johnston, Arnold, & Nishida, 2006;Li, Chen, Xiao, Liu, & Huang, 2017;Maarseveen, Hogendoorn, Verstraten, & Paffen, 2017;Magnussen & Johnsen, 1986;Shima, Murai, Hashimoto, & Yotsumoto, 2016).…”