Center for Mathematics, Computation and Cognition, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Santo André, Brazil.
Conscious Cogn. 2013 Dec;22(4):1174-80. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2013.08.001. Epub 2013 Sep 7.
It has consistently been shown that agents judge the intervals between their actions and outcomes as compressed in time, an effect named intentional binding. In the present work, we investigated whether this effect is result of prior bias volunteers have about the timing of the consequences of their actions, or if it is due to learning that occurs during the experimental session. Volunteers made temporal estimates of the interval between their action and target onset (Action conditions), or between two events (No-Action conditions). Our results show that temporal estimates become shorter throughout each experimental block in both conditions. Moreover, we found that observers judged intervals between action and outcomes as shorter even in very early trials of each block. To quantify the decrease of temporal judgments in experimental blocks, exponential functions were fitted to participants' temporal judgments. The fitted parameters suggest that observers had different prior biases as to intervals between events in which action was involved. These findings suggest that prior bias might play a more important role in this effect than calibration-type learning processes.
研究表明，主体在判断自身行为与其结果之间的时间间隔时，会产生一种时间压缩的效应，这种效应被称为意图绑定。在本研究中，我们旨在探究这种效应是由于主体对自身行为结果的时间预期存在偏差，还是由于在实验过程中主体进行了学习。主体对自身行为与目标出现之间的时间间隔（行为条件），或两个事件之间的时间间隔（无行为条件）进行了时间估计。结果表明，在两种条件下，主体的时间估计在每个实验阶段都会逐渐缩短。此外，我们发现，即使在每个阶段的早期试验中，观察者也会将行为与结果之间的间隔判断为更短。为了量化实验阶段中时间判断的减少，我们对参与者的时间判断进行了指数函数拟合。拟合参数表明，观察者对涉及行为的事件之间的时间间隔存在不同的先验偏差。这些发现表明，在这种效应中，先验偏差可能比校准型学习过程起着更重要的作用。
