Li Min S, Di Luca Massimiliano
Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Cognitive Robotics, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2018 Feb 6;9:105. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00105. eCollection 2018.
Predicting the time of stimulus onset is a key component in perception. Previous investigations of perceived timing have focused on the effect of stimulus properties such as rhythm and temporal irregularity, but the influence of non-temporal properties and their role in predicting stimulus timing has not been exhaustively considered. The present study aims to understand how a non-temporal pattern in a sequence of regularly timed stimuli could improve or bias the detection of temporal deviations. We presented interspersed sequences of 3, 4, 5, and 6 auditory tones where only the timing of the last stimulus could slightly deviate from isochrony. Participants reported whether the last tone was 'earlier' or 'later' relative to the expected regular timing. In two conditions, the tones composing the sequence were either organized into musical scales or they were random tones. In one experiment, all sequences ended with the same tone; in the other experiment, each sequence ended with a different tone. Results indicate higher discriminability of anisochrony with musical scales and with longer sequences, irrespective of the knowledge of the final tone. Such an outcome suggests that the predictability of non-temporal properties, as enabled by the musical scale pattern, can be a factor in determining the sensitivity of time judgments.
预测刺激开始的时间是感知过程中的一个关键组成部分。以往关于感知时间的研究主要集中在刺激属性（如节奏和时间不规则性）的影响上，但非时间属性的影响及其在预测刺激时间方面的作用尚未得到充分考虑。本研究旨在了解在定时规律的刺激序列中的非时间模式如何改善或影响对时间偏差的检测。我们呈现了由3、4、5和6个听觉音调组成的穿插序列，其中只有最后一个刺激的时间可能会稍微偏离等时性。参与者报告最后一个音调相对于预期的规则时间是“更早”还是“更晚”。在两种条件下，组成序列的音调要么被组织成音阶，要么是随机音调。在一个实验中，所有序列都以相同的音调结束；在另一个实验中，每个序列都以不同的音调结束。结果表明，无论对最后一个音调是否了解，音阶和较长序列的不等时性辨别能力都更高。这样的结果表明，音阶模式所赋予的非时间属性的可预测性可能是决定时间判断敏感性的一个因素。
