Contextual influences of dimension, speed, and direction of motion on subjective time perception

Abstract

Research has indicated that the direction of motion and the speed of motion can influence the subjective estimates of temporal duration of two-dimensional (2-D) stimuli expanding and contracting within the picture plane. In this study, we investigated whether the contextual cues of stimulus/movement-plane dimensionality (2-D stimuli with implied movement in the picture plane or depth-rendered "3-D" stimuli with implied movement in the depth plane) influence and interact with speed and implied movement direction during interval estimation. Participants viewed a series of standard stimulus durations followed by a test stimulus duration and determined whether the test and standard durations differed. The results indicated that moving stimuli were overestimated relative to stationary stimuli, regardless of the direction of motion or dimensionality. Also, faster-moving stimuli were overestimated relative to slower-moving stimuli. Importantly, an interaction between movement direction and dimensional cues indicated that the loom/recede distinction occurs for 2-D but not for 3-D stimuli. It is possible that the loom/recede distinction for the 2-D condition may be an artifact arising from reduced or from a lack of perceived motion in 2-D "recede" conditions, rather than a specific overestimation for looming stimuli.

Implied tactile motion: Localizing dynamic stimulations on the skin

“…For example, looming/approaching stimuli have been shown to elicit stronger psychophysiological (Bach, Neuhoff, Perrig, & Seifritz, 2009;Bach et al, 2007) as well as emotional (Bach et al, 2009;Schiff, Caviness, & Gibson, 1962) responses. Approaching (in comparison to receding) stimuli are perceived as lasting longer (Grassi & Pavan, 2012;Kline & Reed, 2013) and as changing more in terms of their loudness (Neuhoff, 1998(Neuhoff, , 2001. Such differences are often explained by the differing importance of approaching and receding stimuli for survival.…”

A Directional Congruency Effect of Amplified Dilated Time Perception Induced by Looming Stimuli With Implied Motion Cues

“…The speed of a moving stimulus is not the sole movement-related cue for duration perception, as the direction of motion also can influence time perception. Previous studies have shown that stimuli looming toward an observer (i.e., discs that expand in size) are associated with subjective time dilation, whereas receding stimuli (i.e., discs that contract in size) are not (Kline & Reed, 2013;New & Scholl, 2009;Van Wassenhove et al, 2008;Wittmann et al, 2010; but see Grassi & Pavan, 2012;Sgouramani et al, 2020). Using an oddball task, Wittmann et al (2010) presented participants with a stream of five visual stimuli, all of which were stationary discs of identical duration except for the fourth, which was a looming or receding disc.…”

“…In this context, the lengthening of apparent duration induced by looming motion is well explained by the cognitive, internal clock models of time perception (Gibbon et al, 1984;Zakay & Block, 1997): An increased arousal elicited by a looming signal leads to an increase in the rate of the internal clock (faster pulse rate) and to an overestimate of duration (Droit-Volet & Meck, 2007;Wittmann & Paulus, 2008). As such, researchers have suggested that time dilation induced by arousing, looming stimuli provides observers with more subjective time in which to prepare appropriate defensive or avoidant responses when facing a potential threat of collision (e.g., Kline & Reed, 2013;Tse et al, 2004). This interpretation is in line with observations that overestimating duration also derives from various other high arousing stimuli, such as angry or fearful facial expressions (Gil & Droit-Volet, 2011), negative sounds (Droit-Volet et al, 2010), and threatened body postures (Droit-Volet & Gil, 2016).…”

Duration estimates within a modality are integrated sub-optimally

“…In this view, duration perception is less dependent on low-level sensory processing. However, recent psychophysical studies have revealed that perceived duration can, in fact, be influenced by various properties of a visual stimulus, such as temporal frequency or speed of motion (Brown, 1995 ; Kanai et al, 2006 ; Kaneko and Murakami, 2009 ; Tomassini et al, 2011 ; Kline and Reed, 2013 ), change of speed (Carrozzo and Lacquaniti, 2012 ), numerosity (Long and Beaton, 1981 ; Xuan et al, 2007 ), contrast (Long and Beaton, 1980 ; Xuan et al, 2007 ), spatial frequency (Aaen-Stockdale et al, 2011 ), and looming (van Wassenhove et al, 2008 ). The fact that duration perception is influenced by so many low-level sensory features suggests that the details of a sensory stimulus contribute to its perceived duration.…”