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Gepubliceerd in:

01-03-2006 | Original Article

Perceived duration of expected and unexpected stimuli

Auteurs: Rolf Ulrich, Judith Nitschke, Thomas Rammsayer

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 2/2006

Abstract

Three experiments assessed whether perceived stimulus duration depends on whether participants process an expected or an unexpected visual stimulus. Participants compared the duration of a constant standard stimulus with a variable comparison stimulus. Changes in expectancy were induced by presenting one type of comparison more frequently than another type. Experiment 1 used standard durations of 100 and 400 ms, and Experiments 2 and 3 durations of 400 and 800 ms. Stimulus frequency did not affect perceived duration in Experiment 1. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, frequent comparisons were perceived as shorter than infrequent ones, and discrimination performance was better for infrequent comparisons. Overall, this study supports the notion that infrequent stimuli increase the speed of an internal pacemaker.

volgende artikel Perceptual or motor learning in SRT tasks with complex sequence structures

We thank Jochen Müssler for suggesting this hypothesis.

The results of this experiment replicated the major results of a pilot study that was performed in the former laboratory of the first author at the University of Wuppertal. The experimental setting of this previous pilot study was virtually identical to that of Experiment 2 and the same number of participants took part in this pilot study. The primary exception was that this previous study employed different stimulus colors. As in the present experiment, this previous work produced a reliable, analogous effect on CE of stimulus frequency, F(1,23) = 11.6, p = .002, and of standard duration, F(1,23) = 6.2, p = .020. In contrast to the present results, the interaction of both factors approached statistical significance, F(1,23) = 3.9, p = .060. The frequency effect was somewhat larger for the 800-ms than for the 400-ms condition. DL also increased with standard duration, F(1,23) = 74.9, p < .001. As in the present experiment, DL was slightly smaller for infrequent than for frequent stimuli. This effect was, however, significant in the former study, F(1,23) = 8.6, p = .007 (mean DL = 79 vs. 68 ms). The interaction of these two factors was statistically insignificant, F(1,23) = 2.2, p = .156. In sum, then, the effect of stimulus frequency on CE turns out to be rather robust.

Post-experimental interviews revealed that most participants did not notice that two different standard durations were employed during this experiment. This could have facilitated such a carry-over effect.

To assess these carry-over effects in detail, we performed a further ANOVA on PSE. This ANOVA not only included the two within-participants “stimulus frequency” and “standard duration,” but also the between-participants factor “order of standard conditions.” This analysis replicated the results reported above. However, it also revealed a main effect of order, F(1,22) = 5.6, p = .027, and a significant interaction of standard duration and order of conditions, F(1,22) = 4.8, p = .038. In brief, the PSE was generally larger for the group who started with the 400-ms rather than with the 800-ms condition. In addition, this order effect was stronger for the 800-ms standard than for the 400-ms standard. The same ANOVA was performed for the data of Experiment 1. This analysis yielded again a significant interaction of standard duration and order of conditions, F(1,22) = 6.2, p = .021, but not a significant main effect of order, F < 1. The PSE of the 400-ms standard was larger for the group who started with the 100-ms condition than for the group who started with 400-ms condition. For the 100-ms standard, however, a reversed order effect was obtained.

In a further pilot experiment, we employed a stimulus duration of 1,200 ms to see if the findings of Experiment 2 would generalize to a larger range of stimulus durations. Unfortunately, however, this temporal discrimination task became too difficult for our participants and thus the obtained DLs were extremely large. Power analysis revealed that a huge sample size would be necessary to reach the same level of statistical power as in Experiment 2.

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Titel: Perceived duration of expected and unexpected stimuli
Auteurs: Rolf Ulrich
Judith Nitschke
Thomas Rammsayer
Publicatiedatum: 01-03-2006
Uitgeverij: Springer-Verlag
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 2/2006
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-004-0195-4

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