The Trajectory Effect in Intermodal Temporal Order Judgments

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p5293 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C Craig

Subjects judged which one of two patterns, a visual or a tactile pattern, had been presented first. The visual and tactile displays were placed in close spatial proximity. The patterns appeared to move across their respective displays. Although irrelevant to the temporal order judgment (TOJ), the direction of motion of the patterns—the trajectory—affected the judgments. When the leading pattern was moving towards the trailing pattern (consistent movement), subjects tended to judge it, correctly, as leading. When the leading pattern was moving away from the trailing pattern (inconsistent movement), subjects tended to judge it, incorrectly, as trailing. Changing the spatial position of the arrays such that the pattern trajectories were no longer towards one another eliminated the effect of movement on TOJs. Although there was a substantial difference in performance on consistent and inconsistent trials, there were no differences in subjects' ratings of their performances. The results demonstrate that the trajectory effect can be obtained multimodally. The issues whether the effect of motion alters the perceived temporal separation between the visual and tactile patterns, and whether the visual and tactile patterns are represented by a common framework, are discussed.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent van de Ven ◽  
Moritz Jaeckels ◽  
Peter De Weerd

We tend to mentally segment a series of events according to perceptual contextual changes, such that items from a shared context are more strongly associated in memory than items from different contexts. It is also known that temporal context provides a scaffold to structure experiences in memory, but its role in event segmentation has not been investigated. We adapted a previous paradigm, which was used to investigate event segmentation using visual contexts, to study the effects of changes in temporal contexts on event segmentation in associative memory. We presented lists of items in which the inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) ranged across lists between 0.5 and 4 s in 0.5 s steps. After each set of six lists, participants judged which one of two test items were shown first (temporal order judgment) for items that were either drawn from the same list or from consecutive lists. Further, participants judged from memory whether the ISI associated to an item lasted longer than a standard interval (2.25s) that was not previously shown. Results showed faster responses for temporal order judgments when items were drawn from the same context, as opposed to items drawn from different contexts. Further, we found that participants were well able to provide temporal duration judgments based on recalled durations. Finally, we found temporal acuity, as estimated by psychometric curve fitting parameters of the recalled durations, correlated inversely with within-list temporal order judgments. These findings show that changes in temporal context support event segmentation in associative memory.


Author(s):  
Guus Christian van Bentum ◽  
Marc Mathijs van Wanrooij ◽  
A. John Van Opstal

To program a goal-directed response in the presence of acoustic reflections, the audio-motor system should suppress the detection of time-delayed sources. We examined the effects of spatial separation and inter-stimulus delay on the ability of human listeners to localize a pair of broadband sounds in the horizontal plane. Participants indicated how many sounds were heard and where these were perceived by making one or two head-orienting localization responses. Results suggest that perceptual fusion of the two sounds depends on delay and spatial separation. Leading and lagging stimuli in close spatial proximity required longer stimulus delays to be perceptually separated than those further apart. Whenever participants heard one sound, their localization responses for synchronous sounds were oriented to a weighted average of both source locations. For short delays, responses were directed towards the leading stimulus location. Increasing spatial separation enhanced this effect. For longer delays, responses were again directed towards a weighted average. When participants perceived two sounds, the first and the second response were directed to either of the leading and lagging source locations. Perceived locations were interchanged often in their temporal order (in ~40% of trials). We show that the percept of two sounds occurring requires sufficient spatiotemporal separation, after which localization can be performed with high accuracy. We propose that the percept of temporal order of two concurrent sounds results from a different process than localization, and discuss how dynamic lateral excitatory-inhibitory interactions within a spatial sensorimotor map could explain the findings.


Author(s):  
Jan Tünnermann ◽  
Ingrid Scharlau

Humans are incapable of judging the temporal order of visual events at brief temporal separations with perfect accuracy. Their performance---which is of much interest in visual cognition and attention research---can be measured with the temporal-order judgment task, which typically produces S-shaped psychometric functions. Occasionally, researchers reported plateaus within these functions, and some theories predict such deviation from the basic S shape. However, the centers of the psychometric functions result from the weakest performance at the most difficult presentations and therefore fluctuate strongly, leaving existence and exact shapes of plateaus unclear. This study set out to investigate whether plateaus disappear if the data accuracy is enhanced, or if we are ``stuck on a plateau'', or rather with it. For this purpose, highly accurate data were assessed by model-based analysis. The existence of plateaus is confidently confirmed and two plausible mechanisms derived from very different models are presented. Neither model, however, performs well in the presence of a strong attention manipulation, and model comparison remains unclear on the question which of the models describes the data best. Nevertheless, the present study includes the highest accuracy in visual TOJ data and the most explicit models of plateaus in TOJ studied so far.


Author(s):  
Jan Tünnermann ◽  
Ingrid Scharlau

Humans are incapable of judging the temporal order of visual events at brief temporal separations with perfect accuracy. Their performance---which is of much interest in visual cognition and attention research---can be measured with the temporal-order judgment task, which typically produces S-shaped psychometric functions. Occasionally, researchers reported plateaus within these functions, and some theories predict such deviation from the basic S shape. However, the centers of the psychometric functions result from the weakest performance at the most difficult presentations and therefore fluctuate strongly, leaving existence and exact shapes of plateaus unclear. This study set out to investigate whether plateaus disappear if the data accuracy is enhanced, or if we are ``stuck on a plateau'', or rather with it. For this purpose, highly accurate data were assessed by model-based analysis. The existence of plateaus is confidently confirmed and two plausible mechanisms derived from very different models are presented. Neither model, however, performs well in the presence of a strong attention manipulation, and model comparison remains unclear on the question which of the models describes the data best. Nevertheless, the present study includes the highest accuracy in visual TOJ data and the most explicit models of plateaus in TOJ studied so far.


Vision ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Tünnermann ◽  
Ingrid Scharlau

Humans are incapable of judging the temporal order of visual events at brief temporal separations with perfect accuracy. Their performance—which is of much interest in visual cognition and attention research—can be measured with the temporal-order judgment (TOJ) task, which typically produces S-shaped psychometric functions. Occasionally, researchers reported plateaus within these functions, and some theories predict such deviation from the basic S shape. However, the centers of the psychometric functions result from the weakest performance at the most difficult presentations and therefore fluctuate strongly, leaving the existence and exact shapes of plateaus unclear. This study set out to investigate whether plateaus disappear if the data accuracy is enhanced, or if we are “stuck on a plateau”, or rather with it. For this purpose, highly accurate data were assessed by model-based analysis. The existence of plateaus is confidently confirmed and two plausible mechanisms derived from very different models are presented. Neither model, however, performs well in the presence of a strong attention manipulation, and model comparison remains unclear on the question of which of the models describes the data best. Nevertheless, the present study includes the highest accuracy in visual TOJ data and the most explicit models of plateaus in TOJ studied so far.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 3529-3552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Yair ◽  
S. Shalev ◽  
Z. Erlich ◽  
A. Agrachov ◽  
E. Katz ◽  
...  

Abstract. Cloud-to-ground lightning flashes usually consist of one or several strokes coming in very short temporal succession and close spatial proximity. The common method for converting stroke data into flashes is using the National Lightning Detection Network (NALDN) thresholds of maximum temporal separation of 0.5 s and maximum lateral distance of 10 km radius between successive strokes. In the present study, we tested a location-based algorithm with several spatial and temporal ranges, and analyzed stroke data obtained by the Israel Lightning Location System (ILLS) during one year (1 August 2009–31 July 2010). We computed the multiplicity, the percentage of single stroke flashes and the geographical distribution of single vs. multiple-stroke flashes for thunderstorms in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Results show that for the NALDN thresholds, the percentage of single stroke flashes in Israel was 37% and the average multiplicity was 1.7. We re-analyzed the data with a spatial range that equals twice the ILLS location error and shorter times. For the new thresholds of maximum distance of 2.5 km and maximum allowed temporal separation of 0.2 s we find that the mean multiplicity of negative CGs is lowered to 1.4 and find a percentage of 58% of single stroke flashes. A unique severe storm from 30 October 2009 is analyzed and compared to the annual average of 2009/10, showing that large deviations from the mean values can occur in specific events.


Author(s):  
Leah Fostick ◽  
Harvey Babkoff

Temporal order judgment (TOJ) thresholds have been widely reported as valid estimates of the temporal disparity necessary for correctly identifying the order of two stimuli. Data for two auditory TOJ paradigms are often reported in the literature: (1) spatially-based TOJ in which the order of presentation of the same stimulus to the right and left ear differs; and (2) spectrally-based TOJ in which the order of two stimuli differing in frequency is presented to one ear or to both ears simultaneously. Since the thresholds reported using the two paradigms differ, the aim of the current study was to compare their response patterns. The results from three different experiments showed that: (1) while almost none of the participants were able to perform the spatial TOJ task when ISI = 5 ms, with the spectral task, 50% reached an accuracy level of 75% when ISI = 5 ms; (2) temporal separation was only a partial predictor for performance in the spectral task, while it fully predicted performance in the spatial task; and (3) training improved performance markedly in the spectral TOJ task, but had no effect on spatial TOJ. These results suggest that the two paradigms may reflect different perceptual mechanisms.


1974 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 503-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham J. Hitch

Two experiments examined the probed recall of visually presented letter sequences in which the items appeared at different spatial locations. Three types of probe were compared: (1) spatial position; (2) temporal association; and (3) combined position and association. In the first experiment, in which the spatial locations of the items were correlated with their temporal order, spatial probes were more effective than temporal association probes. In the second experiment spatial location was uncorrelated with temporal order, and spatial probes were less effective than temporal association probes. Regardless of the probe, errors tended to be items presented close in time to correct responses: spatial proximity was far less important. The results are discussed in terms of a storage system in which items and their spatial locations are organized within a temporal format. Both experiments showed superior combined probe performance, demonstrating that short-term retrieval is not limited to the use of one type of cue at a time. Secondary aspects of the results showed additionally that subjects can “edit” their responses to avoid making obvious mistakes, and that spatial location can be partially forgotten rather than being completely lost.


Perception ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 294-307
Author(s):  
Louise Manfron ◽  
Camille Vanderclausen ◽  
Valéry Legrain

Localizing somatosensory stimuli is an important process, as it allows us to spatially guide our actions toward the object entering in contact with the body. Accordingly, the positions of tactile inputs are coded according to both somatotopic and spatiotopic representations, the latter one considering the position of the stimulated limbs in external space. The spatiotopic representation has often been evidenced by means of temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks. Participants’ judgments about the order of appearance of two successive somatosensory stimuli are less accurate when the hands are crossed over the body midline than uncrossed but also when participants’ hands are placed close together when compared with farther away. Moreover, these postural effects might depend on the vision of the stimulated limbs. The aim of this study was to test the influence of seeing the hands, on the modulation of tactile TOJ by the spatial distance between the stimulated limbs. The results showed no influence of the distance between the stimulated hands on TOJ performance and prevent us from concluding whether vision of the hands affects TOJ performance, or whether these variables interact. The reliability of such distance effect to investigate the spatial representations of tactile inputs is questioned.


Author(s):  
Agnieszka M. Fecica ◽  
Jennifer A. Stolz

Abstract. The influence of facial affect on the perception of temporal order was examined in the context of the temporal order judgment (TOJ) paradigm. Two schematic faces were presented either simultaneously, or separated by varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs; -100 ms, -34 ms, -17 ms, 17 ms, 34 ms, 100 ms), and participants had to judge which face appeared first. Each schematic face displayed one of three emotions; happy, neutral, or angry. Facial affect was found to influence judgments of temporal order at short SOAs (-17 ms, 0 ms, and 17 ms) but not at the longest SOAs (-100 ms and 100 ms), consistent with the hypothesis that facial affect influences relative onset judgments when they are difficult to make.


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