Abstract
The oddball duration effect describes how a rare stimulus amongst a string of standard stimuli is perceived to have a longer duration than the standards, even if they are of the same objective duration. Several theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. In order to adjudicate between opposing explanations, we have borrowed three extensively studied paradigms from the variable foreperiod literature: the sequential foreperiod, temporal cueing and a skewed foreperiod distribution. This approach allowed us to examine the effects of positional expectation on perceived oddball duration, while avoiding confounds from first-order positioning of the oddball in a sequence of standards. Through these three experiments, we demonstrate a clear role of positional expectation in the lengthening of the perceived duration of an oddball. We show that this expectation effect is separable from other drivers of the oddball duration illusion.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
More accurately, the use of the first stimulus as the target increases perceived duration via the so-called debut effect, however Pariyadath and Eagleman (2007) used this to make an argument about the role of expectation in perceived duration.
A similar argument could be levelled at the Pariyadath and Eagleman (2007) study mentioned above. More generally, when trying to access the role of expectation in the oddball duration illusion, most papers do not specify the type of expectation they are discussing.
Note, it is possible for predictive coding to have some sort of ‘second-order’ effects such that the expectation of what would occur is mediated by what was previously seen, what position in the current set we are at and at what position the last oddball occurred in the prior set. But, given such a broad role, it could be difficult to disprove any theory related to predictive coding.
In brief, this involved normalising each mean RT for each binned duration in each condition by dividing by the sum of the mean RTs for each participant. Each binned duration was then multiplied by its corresponding weight, and the results were summed within each condition for each participant.
Comparing to the objective standard duration, the PSE given a 5–5 standard combination was significantly lower [mean PSE = 460 ms, t(19) = 4.03, p = .002, d = 0.90]. The PSE given a 3–5 standard combination was also significantly lower [mean PSE = 461 ms, t(19) = 5.42, p < .001, d = 1.21]. A 5–3 standard combination PSE was not significantly different than the standard duration [mean PSE = 485 ms, t(19) = 1.91, p = .143, d = 0.43], nor was the PSE of a 3–3 standard combination [mean PSE = 512 ms, t(19) = 1.29, p = .213, d = 0.29]. All p values are Holm adjusted.
Though note that in experiment one, the perceived duration of the oddball when 3 standards were presented was veridical, while in this experiment, the perceived duration of the oddball was shorter than veridical.
Compared to the objective standard duration, the PSE of the three-standard, invalid cue was significantly higher [mean PSE = 531 ms, t(19) = 3.22, p = .009, d = 0.72] and if the cue was valid the PSE was not significantly different [mean PSE = 508 ms, t(19) = 1.11, p = .280, d = 0.25]. Given a five-standard, valid or invalid cue, the PSE was significantly lower than the objective standard duration [invalid mean PSE = 458 ms, t(19) = 5.58, p < .001, d = 1.25; valid mean PSE = 472 ms, t(19) = 4.42, p < .001, d = 0.99, respectively]. All p values were Holm adjusted.
When something is easier to process, more information is encoded in a given amount of time. Because we then correlate the amount of information received with perceived duration, we overestimate the duration of the more efficiently processed object.
References
Balcı, F., & Simen, P. (2014). Decision processes in temporal discrimination. Acta Psychologica, 149, 157–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.03.005.
Birngruber, T., Schroter, H., & Ulrich, R. (2015). The influence of stimulus repetition on duration judgments with simple stimuli. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1213. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.01213.
Birngruber, T., Schröter, H., Schütt, E., & Ulrich, R. (2017). Stimulus expectation prolongs rather than shortens perceived duration: Evidence from self-generated expectations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000433.
Birngruber, T., Schröter, H., Schütt, E., & Ulrich, R. (2018). Stimulus expectation prolongs rather than shortens perceived duration: Evidence from self-generated expectations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(1), 117. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000433.
Birngruber, T., Schröter, H., & Ulrich, R. (2014). Duration perception of visual and auditory oddball stimuli: Does judgment task modulate the temporal oddball effect? Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 76(3), 814–828. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0602-2.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Dorfmanm, D. D. (1987). Waveform moment analysis in psychophysiological research. Psychological Bulletin, 102(3), 421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.102.3.421.
Cai, M. B., Eagleman, D. M., & Ma, W. J. (2015). Perceived duration is reduced by repetition but not by high-level expectation. Journal of Vision, 15(13), 19–19. https://doi.org/10.1167/15.13.19.
Capizzi, M., Correa, A., Wojtowicz, A., & Rafal, R. D. (2015). Foreperiod priming in temporal preparation: Testing current models of sequential effects. Cognition, 134, 39–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.09.002.
Correa, Á, Lupianez, J., & Tudela, P. (2006). The attentional mechanism of temporal orienting: Determinants and attributes. Experimental Brain Research, 169(1), 58–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-005-0131-x.
Correa, Á, Lupiáñez, J., Madrid, E., & Tudela, P. (2006). Temporal attention enhances early visual processing: A review and new evidence from event-related potentials. Brain Research, 1076(1), 116–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2005.11.074.
Correa, Á, Lupiáñez, J., Milliken, B., & Tudela, P. (2004). Endogenous temporal orienting of attention in detection and discrimination tasks. Perception and Psychophysics, 66(2), 264–278. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194878.
Coull, J. T., Frith, C. D., Büchel, C., & Nobre, A. C. (2000). Orienting attention in time: Behavioural and neuroanatomical distinction between exogenous and endogenous shifts. Neuropsychologia, 38(6), 808–819. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0028-3932(99)00132-3.
Dyjas, O., Bausenhart, K. M., & Ulrich, R. (2012). Trial-by-trial updating of an internal reference in discrimination tasks: Evidence from effects of stimulus order and trial sequence. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 74(8), 1819–1841. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-012-0362-4.
Dyjas, O., & Ulrich, R. (2014). Effects of stimulus order on discrimination processes in comparative and equality judgements: Data and models. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(6), 1121–1150. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2013.847968.
Eagleman, D. (2008). Human time perception and its illusions. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 18(2), 131–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2008.06.002.
Eagleman, D., & Pariyadath, V. (2009). Is subjective duration a signature of coding efficiency? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 364(1525), 1841–1851. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0026.
Fromboluti, E. K., Jones, K. B., & McAuley, J. D. (2013). Temporal preparation contributes to the overestimation of duration of ‘oddball’ events. In Frontiers in human neuroscience conference abstract: 14th rhythm production and perception workshop, Birmingham. https://doi.org/10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.214.00013.
Granjon, M., Requin, J., Durup, H., & Reynard, G. (1973a). Effects of timing signal of simple reaction time with “non-aging” foreperiods. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 101(1), 139.
Grondin, S., & Rammsayer, T. (2003). Variable foreperiods and temporal discrimination. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A, 56(4), 731–765. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724980244000611.
Holm, S. (1979). A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0035765.
Kim, E., & McAuley, J. D. (2013). Effects of pitch distance and likelihood on the perceived duration of deviant auditory events. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 75(7), 1547–1558. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0490-5.
Lawrence, M. A. (2013). ez: Easy analysis and visualization of factorial experiments. R package version 4.2-2. Available at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ez. Accessed 12 Feb 2015.
Lin, Y.-J., & Shimojo, S. (2017). Triple dissociation of duration perception regulating mechanisms: Top-down attention is inherent. PLoS One, 12(8), e0182639. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182639.
Linares, D., & Lopez-Moliner, J. (2016) quickpsy: An R package to fit psychometric functions for multiple groups. The R Journal, 8(2016), 122–131.
Los, S. A. (2010). Foreperiod and the sequential effect: Theory and data. In A. C. Nobre & J. T. Coull (Eds.), Attention and time (pp. 289–302). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Los, S. A. (2013). The role of response inhibition in temporal preparation: evidence from a go/no-go task. Cognition, 129(2), 328–344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.07.013.
Los, S. A., & Schut, M. L. J. (2008). The effective time course of preparation. Cognitive Psychology, 57(1), 20–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2007.11.001.
Los, S. A., & van den Heuvel, C. E. (2001). Intentional and unintentional contributions to nonspecific preparation during reaction time foreperiods. Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 27(2), 370–386. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.27.2.370.
Matthews, W. J. (2011). Stimulus repetition and the perception of time: The effects of prior exposure on temporal discrimination, judgment, and production. PLoS One, 6(5), e19815. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019815.
Matthews, W. J. (2015). Time perception: The surprising effects of surprising stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(1), 172–197. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000041.
Matthews, W. J., & Gheorghiu, A. I. (2016). Repetition, expectation, and the perception of time. Current Opinions in Behavioral Sciences, 8, 110–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2016.02.019.
Matthews, W. J., & Meck, W. H. (2016). Temporal cognition: Connecting subjective time to perception, attention, and memory. Psychological Bulletin, 142(8), 865. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000045.
McAuley, J. D., & Fromboluti, E. K. (2014). Attentional entrainment and perceived event duration. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 369(1658), 20130401. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0401.
Mento, G. (2017). The role of the P3 and CNV components in voluntary and automatic temporal orienting: A high spatial-resolution ERP study. Neuropsychologia, 107(Supplement C), 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.037.
Mo, S. S., & George, E. J. (1977). Foreperiod effect on time estimation and simple reaction time. Acta Psychologica, 41(1), 47–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(77)90010-5.
Näätänen, R. (1971). Non-aging fore-periods and simple reaction time. Acta Psychologica, 35(4), 316–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(71)90040-0.
New, J. J., & Scholl, B. J. (2009). Subjective time dilation: Spatially local, object-based, or a global visual experience? Journal of Vision, 9(2), 4–4. https://doi.org/10.1167/9.2.4.
Niemi, P., & Näätänen, R. (1981). Foreperiod and simple reaction time. Psychological Bulletin, 89(1), 133. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.89.1.133.
Nobre, A., Correa, A., & Coull, J. (2007). The hazards of time. Current Opinions in Neurobiology, 17(4), 465–470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2007.07.006.
Pariyadath, V., & Eagleman, D. (2007). The effect of predictability on subjective duration. PLoS One, 2(11), e1264. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001264.
Pariyadath, V., & Eagleman, D. M. (2012). Subjective duration distortions mirror neural repetition suppression. PLoS One, 7(12), e49362. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049362.
Rammsayer, T. H., & Verner, M. (2016). Evidence for different processes involved in the effects of nontemporal stimulus size and numerical digit value on duration judgments. Journal of Vision, 16(7), 13. https://doi.org/10.1167/16.7.13.
R-Core-Team. (2015). R: A language and environmentfor statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org/. Accessed 1 Mar 2014.
Schindel, R., Rowlands, J., & Arnold, D. H. (2011). The oddball effect: Perceived duration and predictive coding. Journal of Vision, 11(2), 17–17. https://doi.org/10.1167/11.2.17.
Simchy-Gross, R., & Margulis, E. H. (2017). Expectation, information processing, and subjective duration. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1432-4.
Simen, P., Balci, F., Cohen, J. D., & Holmes, P. (2011). A model of interval timing by neural integration. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(25), 9238–9253. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3121-10.2011.
Skylark, W., & Gheorghiu, A. (2017). Further evidence that the effects of repetition on subjective time depend on repetition probability. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1915. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01915.
Steinborn, M. B., Rolke, B., Bratzke, D., & Ulrich, R. (2008). Sequential effects within a short foreperiod context: Evidence for the conditioning account of temporal preparation. Acta Psychologica (Amsterdam), 129(2), 297–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.08.005.
Taatgen, N., & van Rijn, H. (2011). Traces of times past: Representations of temporal intervals in memory. Memory and Cognition, 39(8), 1546–1560. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0113-0.
Theodosopoulou, D., Capizzi, M., Sanabria, D., & Correa, A. (2014). Spectro-temporal unfolding of temporal orienting of attention. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 126, 38–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.309.
Thomaschke, R., Wagener, A., Kiesel, A., & Hoffmann, J. (2011). The specificity of temporal expectancy: Evidence from a variable foreperiod paradigm. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(12), 2289–2300. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2011.616212.
Tse, P. U., Intrilligator, J., Rivest, J., & Cavanagh, P. (2004). Attention and the subjective expansion of time. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 66(7), 1171–1189.
Tse, P. U. (2010). Attention underlies subjective temporal expansion. In A. C. Nobre & J. T. Coull (Eds.), Attention and time (pp. 137–150). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Ulrich, R., Nitschke, J., & Rammsayer, T. (2006). Perceived duration of expected and unexpected stimuli. Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 70(2), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-004-0195-4.
Vallesi, A., Lozano, V. N., & Correa, Á (2013). Dissociating temporal preparation processes as a function of the inter-trial interval duration. Cognition, 127(1), 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.11.011.
Vallesi, A., Mussoni, A., Mondani, M., Budai, R., Skrap, M., & Shallice, T. (2007). The neural basis of temporal preparation: Insights from brain tumor patients. Neuropsychologia, 45(12), 2755–2763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.04.017.
Vallesi, A., & Shallice, T. (2007). Developmental dissociations of preparation over time: Deconstructing the variable foreperiod phenomena. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 33(6), 1377–1388. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.33.6.1377.
Vallesi, A., Shallice, T., & Walsh, V. (2007). Role of the prefrontal cortex in the foreperiod effect: TMS evidence for dual mechanisms in temporal preparation. Cerebral Cortex, 17(2), 466–474. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhj163.
Woodrow, H. (1914). The measurement of attention. The psychological monographs, 17(5), i–158. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093087.
Funding
Sowman is supported by the Australian Research Council (DP170103148) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders (http://www.ccd.edu.au); (CE110001021).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Wehrman declares he has no conflict of interest. Wearden declares he has no conflict of interest. Sowman declares he has no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wehrman, J.J., Wearden, J. & Sowman, P. The expected oddball: effects of implicit and explicit positional expectation on duration perception. Psychological Research 84, 713–727 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1093-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1093-5