A comparison of temporal binding across different tasks

• Grant number: 19/25572-3
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): November 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
• Principal researcher: André Mascioli Cravo
• Grantee: Gustavo Brito de Azevedo
• Home Institution: Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição (CMCC). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 21/13386-0 - The reliability of Temporal Binding across sessions and tasks, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Time perception is one of the most important skills for living beings and is crucial for the survival of various species. Two of the main skills related to time perception are interval timing (the ability to measure the duration between two events) and occurrence timing (the ability to precise a time when a particular event occurred). Although these are essential abilities, we know that they are subject to bias and distortion. Haggard et al. (2002) demonstrated one of these effects, known as temporal binding, in which a cause and its effect seem approximate in time, as if the interval between the two events had shortened in the subjective perception. Since this seminal study, the importance of the interaction between causal and temporal perception has often been discussed. Several studies have already used a series of experimental methodologies relating to one of those two main time perception abilities, but so far, no study has compared the performance of one same volunteer for each of these methods. The aim of this project is to fill this gap in the literature using four experimental tasks (two for interval timing and two for time of occurrence) in a within-subjects methodology. We will expose volunteers in each of these four tasks to causal and non-causal conditions, and we will evaluate their temporal perception. Volunteers' performance can give us important clues about the temporal binding phenomenon and time perception itself, as possible dissociations of effect size between categories could suggest different cognitive and neural mechanisms behind the two types of time perception abilities. (AU)