Temporal bisection is influenced by ensemble statistics of the stimulus set

Abstract

Although humans are well capable of precise time measurement, their duration judgments are nevertheless susceptible to temporal context. Previous research on temporal bisection has shown that duration comparisons are influenced by both stimulus spacing and ensemble statistics. However, theories proposed to account for bisection performance lack a plausible justification of how the effects of stimulus spacing and ensemble statistics are actually combined in temporal judgments. To explain the various contextual effects in temporal bisection, we develop a unified ensemble-distribution account (EDA), which assumes that the mean and variance of the duration set serve as a reference, rather than the short and long standards, in duration comparison. To validate this account, we conducted three experiments that varied the stimulus spacing (Experiment 1), the frequency of the probed durations (Experiment 2), and the variability of the probed durations (Experiment 3). The results revealed significant shifts of the bisection point in Experiments 1 and 2, and a change of the sensitivity of temporal judgments in Experiment 3—which were all well predicted by EDA. In fact, comparison of EDA to the extant prior accounts showed that using ensemble statistics can parsimoniously explain various stimulus set-related factors (e.g., spacing, frequency, variance) that influence temporal judgments.

Introduction to the special issue on ensemble perception

“…Melcher et al (2020) report qualitatively different relationships between exposure duration and the accuracies of small and large numerosity estimates. Zhu et al (2020) explicitly probe ensemble representations of duration and provide a model for how the quality of those representations depends on the statistics of the ensemble. Corbett et al (2020) found negative aftereffects of adaptation to the average duration of sequentially presented sets of visual events, suggesting independent neural mechanisms that are selectively sensitive over a limited range of average durations.…”

Phrase Depicting Immoral Behavior Dilates Its Subjective Time Judgment

“…It has been shown that the experimental context could affect the temporal judgment by mediating participants' prior knowledge and prediction of the forthcoming stimulus (Shi et al, 2013;Ulrich and Bausenhart, 2019;Glasauer and Shi, 2021a,b;Zhu et al, 2021). For example, the frequency of the probe durations can cause a shift of the bisection point toward the ensemble mean of the sample durations (Zhu et al, 2021). However, this is unlikely here given that all conditions were tested in the same range with a same number of trials.…”

“…Still, one might wonder whether the number of experimental conditions would affect the duration judgment as contextual bias. It has been shown that the experimental context could affect the temporal judgment by mediating participants' prior knowledge and prediction of the forthcoming stimulus (Shi et al, 2013;Ulrich and Bausenhart, 2019;Glasauer and Shi, 2021a,b;Zhu et al, 2021). For example, the frequency of the probe durations can cause a shift of the bisection point toward the ensemble mean of the sample durations (Zhu et al, 2021).…”

The Spread of the Lengthening Time Effect of Emotions in Memory: A Test in the Setting of the Central Tendency Effect

“…Our data therefore provide additional evidence on the key role of previous experience (prior) on perceived intervals (likelihood). In other words, time judgment is not simply the result of an interval measured by an internal clock system, but also of participants’ dispositions based on their knowledge, which is itself updated by experience of stimulus processing ( Zhu et al, 2021 ).…”