Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: The brain constructs a representation of temporal properties of events, such as duration and frequency, but the underlying neural mechanisms are under debate. One open question is whether these mechanisms are unisensory or multisensory. Duration perception studies provide some evidence for a dissociation between auditory and visual timing mechanisms; however, we found active crossmodal interaction between audition and vision for rate perception, even when vision and audition were never stimulated together. After exposure to 5 Hz adaptors, people perceived subsequent test stimuli centered around 4 Hz to be slower, and the reverse after exposure to 3 Hz adaptors. This aftereffect occurred even when the adaptor and test were different modalities that were never presented together. When the discrepancy in rate between adaptor and test increased, the aftereffect was attenuated, indicating that the brain uses narrowly-tuned channels to process rate information. Our results indicate that human timing mechanisms for rate perception are not entirely segregated between modalities and have substantial implications for models of how the brain encodes temporal features. We propose a model of multisensory channels for rate perception, and consider the broader implications of such a model for how the brain encodes timing.
Source: Scientific Reports
DOI: 10.1038/srep08857
Institutions: Occidental College, California Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
Funders: National Science Foundation, California Institute of Technology, Philanthropic Educational Organization, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, National Institutes of Health, National Eye Institute, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology
OpenAlex ID: W2003044899