Ball Danny M, Arnold Derek H, Yarrow Kielan
Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, Department of Psychology, City, University of London.
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2017 May;43(5):868-880. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000368. Epub 2017 Feb 23.
Humans might possess either a single (amodal) internal clock or multiple clocks for different sensory modalities. Sensitivity could be improved by the provision of multiple signals. Such improvements can be predicted quantitatively, assuming estimates are combined by summation, a process described as optimal when summation is weighted in accordance with the variance associated with each of the initially independent estimates. This possibility was assessed for visual and tactile information regarding temporal intervals. In Experiment 1, 12 musicians and 12 nonmusicians judged durations of 300 and 600 ms, compared to test values spanning these standards. Bimodal precision increased relative to unimodal conditions, but not to the extent predicted by optimally weighted summation. In Experiment 2, 6 musicians and 6 other participants each judged 6 standards, ranging from 100 ms to 600 ms, with conflicting cues providing a measure of the weight assigned to each sensory modality. A weighted integration model best fitted these data, with musicians more likely to select near-optimal weights than nonmusicians. Overall, data were consistent with the existence of separate visual and tactile clock components at either the counter/integrator or memory stages. Independent estimates are passed to a decisional process, but not always combined in a statistically optimal fashion. (PsycINFO Database Record
人类可能拥有一个单一的（非模态）内部时钟，或者针对不同感官模态拥有多个时钟。通过提供多个信号可以提高敏感性。假设估计值通过求和进行组合，这种改进可以进行定量预测，当求和根据与每个最初独立估计值相关的方差进行加权时，这个过程被描述为最优的。针对关于时间间隔的视觉和触觉信息评估了这种可能性。在实验1中，12名音乐家和12名非音乐家判断300毫秒和600毫秒的时长，并与跨越这些标准的测试值进行比较。相对于单模态条件，双模态精度有所提高，但未达到最优加权求和所预测的程度。在实验2中，6名音乐家和6名其他参与者分别判断6个标准，范围从100毫秒到600毫秒，冲突线索提供了分配给每个感官模态权重的一种度量。一个加权整合模型最能拟合这些数据，音乐家比非音乐家更有可能选择接近最优的权重。总体而言，数据与在计数器/积分器或记忆阶段存在独立的视觉和触觉时钟组件相一致。独立估计值被传递到决策过程，但并非总是以统计上最优的方式进行组合。（PsycINFO数据库记录）
