Simultaneous emotional stimuli prolong the timing of vibrotactile events

Temporal information plays a crucial role in human everyday life. Yet, perceived time is subject to distortions. Emotion, for instance, is a powerful time modulator in that emotional events are perceived longer than neutral events of the same length. However, it is unknown how exposure to emotional stimuli influences the time perception of a simultaneous neutral tactile event. To fill this gap, we tested the effect of emotional auditory sounds on the perception of neutral vibrotactile feedback. We used neutral and emotional (i.e., pleasant-high arousal, pleasant-low arousal, unpleasant-high arousal, and unpleasant-low arousal) auditory stimuli from the International Digitized Sound System (IADS). Tactile information was a vibrotactile stimulus at a fixed intensity and presented through a custom-made vibrotactile sleeve. Participants listened to auditory stimuli which were temporally coupled with vibrotactile stimulation for 2,3,4, or 5sec. Their task was to focus on the duration of vibrotactile information and reproduce elapsed time. We tested the effects of valence and arousal of auditory stimuli on the perceived duration of vibrotactile information. Simultaneously presented auditory stimuli, in general, lengthened the perceived duration of the neutral vibrotactile information compared to neutral auditory stimuli. We conclude that emotional events influence time perception of simultaneous neutral haptic events.

时序信息在人类日常生活中发挥着核心作用。然而，人类感知到的时间往往会出现扭曲。例如，情绪是一种强效的时间调节因子：相同时长的情绪性事件，其感知时长会长于同等长度的中性事件。但目前学界尚未明确，接触情绪性刺激会如何影响同时发生的中性触觉事件的时间知觉。为填补这一研究空白，本研究探讨了情绪性听觉刺激对中性振动触觉反馈的时间知觉的影响。本研究采用了来自国际数字化声音系统（International Digitized Sound System, IADS）的中性与情绪性听觉刺激，其中情绪性刺激分为愉悦-高唤醒、愉悦-低唤醒、厌恶-高唤醒及厌恶-低唤醒四类。触觉刺激为强度固定的振动触觉刺激，通过定制振动触觉袖套呈现。被试聆听与振动触觉刺激时间同步的听觉刺激，刺激时长分别为2、3、4或5秒。实验任务要求被试专注于振动触觉刺激的时长，并复现所感知到的经过时长。本研究考察了听觉刺激的效价与唤醒度对振动触觉刺激感知时长的影响。总体而言，相较于中性听觉刺激，同时呈现的听觉刺激会延长中性振动触觉刺激的感知时长。本研究最终证实，情绪性事件会对同时发生的中性触觉事件的时间知觉产生影响。