Data from: Opposite distortions in interval timing perception for visual and auditory stimuli with temporal modulations

When an object is presented visually and moves or flickers, the perception of its duration tends to be overestimated. Such an overestimation is called time dilation. Perceived time can also be distorted when a stimulus is presented aurally as an auditory flutter, but the mechanisms and their relationship to visual processing remains unclear. In the present study, we measured interval timing perception while modulating the temporal characteristics of visual and auditory stimuli, and investigated whether the interval times of visually and aurally presented objects shared a common mechanism. In these experiments, participants compared the durations of flickering or fluttering stimuli to standard stimuli, which were presented continuously. Perceived durations for auditory flutters were underestimated, while perceived durations of visual flickers were overestimated. When auditory flutters and visual flickers were presented simultaneously, these distortion effects were cancelled out. When auditory flutters were presented with a constantly presented visual stimulus, the interval timing perception of the visual stimulus was affected by the auditory flutters. These results indicate that interval timing perception is governed by independent mechanisms for visual and auditory processing, and that there are some interactions between the two processing systems.

当客体以视觉方式呈现并发生移动或闪烁时，个体对其持续时长的感知往往会出现高估，这种高估现象被称为时间膨胀（time dilation）。当刺激以听觉形式呈现为听觉颤音（auditory flutter）时，感知时间同样会发生扭曲，但其背后的作用机制以及与视觉加工的关联仍未明确。本研究通过调节视觉与听觉刺激的时间特征，对间隔计时感知（interval timing perception）进行了测量，并探讨了视觉与听觉呈现客体的间隔计时是否共享共同的加工机制。在本系列实验中，被试需将闪烁刺激或颤音刺激的时长与持续呈现的标准刺激进行时长比较。结果显示，听觉颤音的感知时长被低估，而视觉闪烁刺激的感知时长则被高估。当听觉颤音与视觉闪烁刺激同时呈现时，这两种扭曲效应会相互抵消。当听觉颤音与持续呈现的视觉刺激搭配呈现时，听觉颤音会对视觉刺激的间隔计时感知产生影响。上述结果表明，间隔计时感知由视觉与听觉加工的独立机制所主导，且两类加工系统之间存在一定的交互作用。