Department of Psychology, City University London, UK.
Conscious Cogn. 2011 Dec;20(4):1518-31. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2011.07.003. Epub 2011 Jul 31.
In timing perception studies, the timing of one event is usually manipulated relative to another, and participants are asked to judge if the two events were synchronous, or to judge which of the two events occurred first. Responses are analyzed to determine a measure of central tendency, which is taken as an estimate of the timing at which the two events are perceptually synchronous. When these estimates do not coincide with physical synchrony, it is often assumed that the sensory signals are asynchronous, as though the transfer of information concerning one input has been accelerated or decelerated relative to the other. Here we show that, while this is a viable interpretation, it is equally plausible that such effects are driven by shifts in the criteria used to differentiate simultaneous from asynchronous inputs. Our analyses expose important ambiguities concerning the interpretation of simultaneity judgement data, which have hitherto been underappreciated.
在时间感知研究中，通常会对一个事件的时间进行操作，使其相对于另一个事件发生，并要求参与者判断这两个事件是否同步，或者判断哪一个事件先发生。通过分析响应来确定一个集中趋势的度量，该度量被视为两个事件在感知上同步的时间估计。当这些估计与物理同步不一致时，通常假设感觉信号是异步的，就好像关于一个输入的信息传递相对于另一个输入被加速或减速了。在这里，我们表明，虽然这是一种可行的解释，但同样有可能的是，这种效应是由用于区分同步和异步输入的标准变化驱动的。我们的分析揭示了迄今为止被低估的关于同时性判断数据解释的重要歧义。
