Making Sense of Timing and Attention: Modality Effect in Timing with a Break

Abstract

Tones are perceived longer than visual stimuli of same durations. One interpretation of this modality effect is that auditory stimuli capture attention more easily than visual stimuli, resulting in more efficient temporal processing. During a time interval production, expecting a break signal lengthens the produced interval, an effect explained by attention sharing between timing and monitoring for the signal occurrence. In the present study, participants produced a brief time interval defined by a visual or an auditory stimulus and in most trials, there was a break in stimulus presentation. The effect of break expectancy was significantly stronger when the timing stimulus was presented in the visual than in the auditory modality, an interaction supporting attentional interpretations of the modality and expectancy effects. We conclude that auditory stimuli orient attention to time more readily than visual stimuli in a context of attention sharing, which reduces the distracting effect of break expectancy.

Mental Summation of Temporal Duration within and across Senses

“…Thus, participants needed to sum the pre-break and post-break durations. Fortin and Massé [ 11 ] and Viau-Quesnel et al [ 14 ]directly compared with- and without-break conditions, which were similar to the summation and single-stimulus tasks in the present study, respectively. They reported that, in most cases, the reproduced duration was shorter in the with- versus without-break condition.…”

“…Although the summation process has not been directly studied, Fortin and colleagues investigated time perception using similar stimulus conditions as the present study [ 11 – 14 ]. In their studies, participants were required to produce a target duration.…”

“…Beyond time perception and memory, it is important to understand how time is mentally manipulated, because this will provide constraints on how time is represented in the brain. While knowledge of time perception and memory has increased, few studies have addressed mental manipulation of represented time (e.g., how two time durations are added) using timing tasks [ 10 – 14 ]. Therefore, the present study concentrated on summation of two temporal durations.…”

Timing, working memory and expectancy: a review of interference studies

“…It occurs with varying positions of intervening stimuli in time discrimination [40]. It is stronger with older than younger adults [41], with visual than auditory stimuli [42], and when participants do not count to aid timing [43]. In short, when attention requirements are higher, effects of expectancy are stronger, which supports an attentional interpretation of the effect.…”

“…In concurrent processing studies, participants are asked explicitly to execute two tasks, for example memory search and time production; attention sharing is deliberate, controlled, and effortful, resulting in longer produced intervals. In break experiments [41][42][43]46], produced intervals lengthen proportionally to the duration of expectancy for the break signal, but participants are unaware of sharing attention between timing and expecting the signal. In break experiments, implicit, predictive timing is not related to production of a motor response, but only to interruption in timing, which eliminates the potential influence of motor preparation.…”