Distracted to a fault: Attention, actions, and time perception

Developmental Science, 2018

It is well established that the temporal proximity of two events is a fundamental cue to causality. Recent research with adults has shown that this relation is bidirectional: events that are believed to be causally related are perceived as occurring closer together in time—the so‐called temporal binding effect. Here, we examined the developmental origins of temporal binding. Participants predicted when an event that was either caused by a button press, or preceded by a non‐causal signal, would occur. We demonstrate for the first time that children as young as 4 years are susceptible to temporal binding. Binding occurred both when the button press was executed via intentional action, and when a machine caused it. These results suggest binding is a fundamental, early developing property of perception and grounded in causal knowledge. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQC_MqjxZQQ

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Temporal binding refers to a phenomenon whereby the time interval between a cause and its effect is perceived as shorter than the same interval separating two unrelated events. We examined the developmental profile of this phenomenon by comparing the performance of groups of children (aged 6–7, 7–8, and 9–10 years) and adults on a novel interval estimation task. In Experiment 1, participants made judgements about the time interval between (a) their button press and a rocket launch, and (b) a non-causal predictive signal and rocket launch. In Experiment 2, an additional causal condition was included in which participants made judgements about the interval between an experimenter’s button press and the launch of a rocket. Temporal binding was demonstrated consistently and did not change in magnitude with age: estimates of delay were shorter in causal contexts for both adults and children. In addition, the magnitude of the binding effect was greater when participants themselves were th...

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

The perception of time is distorted by many factors (e.g., arousal, temperature, age etc.), but is it possible that causality would affect our perception of time? We investigate timing changes in the temporal binding effect, which refers to a subjective shortening of the interval between actions and their outcomes. Four experiments investigated whether binding may be due to variations in the rate of an internal clock. Specifically, we asked whether binding reflects changes to a general timing system, or a dedicated clock unique to causal sequences. We developed a novel experimental paradigm (embedded interval estimation procedure) in which participants made temporal judgments of either causal or non causal intervals, or the duration of an event embedded within that interval. Stimuli and modality were combined factorially, with interval markers and embedded events being either visual or auditory. While we replicated the temporal binding effect, we found no evidence for commensurate changes to time perception of the embedded event, which suggests that temporal binding is effected by changes to a specific and dedicated, rather than a general clock system.

Timing & Time Perception Reviews, 2014

PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2000

The malleability of our subjective perception of time has recently received a great amount of empirical attention with respect to the Temporal Binding of intentional actions to their subsequent effects (e.g. Haggard, Clark & Kalogeras, 2002). Given the number of studies utilizing the venerable Libet clock method, this thesis presents several novel methods for the investigation of the Temporal Binding phenomenon. Firstly, five experiments requiring the numerical estimation of intervals between operant action and subsequent effect, as well as intervals between superficially identical (based on stimulus properties) observed sequences showed that participants judged operant intervals to be shorter than relative observed intervals. This effect existed at intervals far longer than those previously reported (Haggard et al., 2002), whilst demonstrating a pattern of results similar to previous studies involving hypothesized changes of internal clock speeds (e.g. Penton-Voak, Edwards, Percival, & Wearden, 1996). This shortening of the reported interval between cause and effect also occurred when numerical estimation was replaced with the reproduction of the inter-event interval. Having demonstrated a Temporal Binding effect with these novel methods, I then investigate the Causality based explanation of Eagleman & Holcombe (2002), employing keypress timings as an indicator of the perceived timing of the awareness of events. In three experiments, when both conditions involve intentional action, a Binding effect only occurs when this intentional action results in a caused effect. Having thus demonstrated that Causality is an essential prerequisite of Temporal Binding, two experiments involving the judgment of the length of an object between two classic Michottean launching stimuli show shorter reported lengths for causally related (instantaneous launch) relative to unrelated (delayed launch) trials. I therefore argue that Binding is an online process that influences our perception of the

Acta Psychologica, 2011

Currently, it is unclear what model of timing best describes temporal processing across millisecond and second timescales in tasks with different response requirements. In the present set of experiments, we assessed whether the popular dedicated scalar model of timing accounts for performance across a restricted timescale surrounding the 1 second duration for different tasks. The first two experiments evaluate whether temporal variability scales proportionally with the timed duration within temporal reproduction. The third experiment compares timing across millisecond and second timescales using temporal reproduction and discrimination tasks designed with parallel structures. The data exhibit violations of the assumptions of a single scalar timekeeper across millisecond and second timescales within temporal reproduction; these violations are less apparent for temporal discrimination. The finding of differences across tasks suggests that task demands influence the mechanisms that are engaged for keeping time.

Acta Psychologica, 2014

When an action produces an effect, both events are perceived to be shifted in time toward each other. This shift is called Intentional Binding (IB) effect. First evidence shows that this shift does not depend on the statistical predictability of the produced effect's identity (Desantis, Hughes, & Waszak, 2012). We confirm this result by comparing the perceived duration of action-effect intervals before valid and invalid action effects using the method of constant stimuli. The perceived duration of action-effect intervals did not differ for valid and invalid effects. This result was true for different durations of the action-effect interval (Experiments 1-4: 250 ms, Experiments 1 & 2: 400 ms), different effect modalities (Experiments 1 & 3: visual, Experiments 2-4: auditive), and two types of validity variations (Experiments 1 & 2: 80% valid, Experiments 3 & 4: 100% valid vs. random). We validated our results by using a clock paradigm and a numerical duration estimation task (Experiment 4). We conclude that the IB effect is not the result of internal prediction due to action-effect bindings, but might rely on higher-order processes.

Consciousness and Cognition, 2002

Reinterpretations of Libet's results have received support from most commentaries. Libet's arguments against alternative hypotheses are contested. Latency depends on intensity. Integration of intensity and duration explains the Minimum Train Duration. Analogies of Libet's timing of intentions with control (flash-lag-like) experiments indicate biases of opposite signs, according to intramodal or intermodal results. Rosenthal's view of nonconscious intentions (or sensations) becoming conscious after a delay is favored. Compatibilist free will is discussed.

Cognition, 2017

In everyday life, actions and sensory events occur in complex sequences, with events triggering actions that in turn give rise to additional events and so on. Earlier work has shown that a sensory event that is triggered by a voluntary action is perceived to have occurred earlier in time than an identical event that is not triggered by an action. In other words, events that are believed to be caused by our actions are drawn forward in time towards our actions. Similarly, when a sensory event triggers an action, that event is again drawn in time towards the action and is thus perceived to have occurred later than it really did. This alteration in time perception serves to bind together events and actions that are causally linked. It is not clear, however, whether or not the perceived timing of a sensory event embedded within a longer series of actions and sensory events is also temporally bound to the actions in that sequence. In the current study, we measured the temporal binding in sequences consisting of two simple dyads of eventaction and action-event in a series of manual action tasks: an event-action-event triad (Experiment 1) and an action-event-action triad (Experiment 2). Auditory tones either triggered an action or were presented 250 ms after an action was performed. To reduce the influence of sensory events other than the tone, such as a noise associated with pressing a key on a keyboard, we used an optical sensor to detect hand movements where no contact was made with a surface. In Experiment 1, there appeared to be no change in the perceived onset of an auditory tone when the onset of that tone followed a hand movement and then the tone triggered a second hand movement. It was as if the temporal binding between the action and the tone and then the tone and the subsequent action summed algebraically and cancelled each other out. In Experiment 2, both the perceived onset of an initial tone which triggered an action and the perceived onset of a second tone which was presented 250 ms after the action were temporally bound to the action. Taken together, the present study suggests that the temporal binding between our actions and sensory events occur separately in each dyad within a longer sequence of actions and events.

2013

The aim of this work is three-fold: first, to provide a brief historical account of time in cognitive psychology focusing primarily on the significant contributions of Jean-Marie Guyau, William James, and Henri Bergson. In examining the historical ideas of these influential writers, the present work hopes to furnish the psychology of time with a firm theoretical framework that clarifies the motivation behind subsequent analyses. Second, the various models and perspectives proposed that attempt at explaining human psychological time will be thoroughly examined. This will be accomplished by a critical consideration of some of the important models proposed to explain psychological time: Clock models (chronobiological models, scalar-timing model, attentional-gate model), and clock-free models (storage-size model, contextual-change model, coincidence-detection model). Finally, a psychophysical experiment that tests some of the theories and assumptions concerning the subjective expansion and contraction of our subjective flow of time will be reported. This experiment, using the method of reproduction, essentially tests how different factors (visual stimulus complexity, stimuli quantity, cognitive interference) can influence later duration reproductions. The results wills be discussed in light of the historical ideas that helped shape the psychology of time, as well as the proposed models that aid in providing an adequate explanatory account of interval-timing behavior.