Apparent time interval of visual stimuli is compressed during fast hand movement.

Takumi Yokosaka,Junji Watanabe,Scinob Kuroki,Shin’Ya Nishida,Simon J Cropper

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124901

Abstract

The influence of body movements on visual time perception is receiving increased attention. Past studies showed apparent expansion of visual time before and after the execution of hand movements and apparent compression of visual time during the execution of eye movements. Here we examined whether the estimation of sub-second time intervals between visual events is expanded, compressed, or unaffected during the execution of hand movements. The results show that hand movements, at least the fast ones, reduced the apparent time interval between visual events. A control experiment indicated that the apparent time compression was not produced by the participants’ involuntary eye movements during the hand movements. These results, together with earlier findings, suggest hand movement can change apparent visual time either in a compressive way or in an expansive way, depending on the relative timing between the hand movement and visual stimulus.

Highlights

Accurate estimation of time intervals is an essential sensory ability for dynamic interaction with the external environment through body movements [1]
We showed that the execution of fast hand movements compressed the estimated subsecond duration of intervals marked by visual events
If the estimated duration of a visual stimulus during hand movement is determined by the modality combination, the estimated apparent interval during hand movement should be prolonged

Summary

Introduction

Accurate estimation of time intervals is an essential sensory ability for dynamic interaction with the external environment through body movements [1]. Growing evidence indicates a relationship between body movements and the estimation of time. The compression of tactile duration after adaptation to tactile motion is canceled out by a voluntary hand motion [8]. These findings suggest that body movements make the estimations of time more veridical, but this is not a general rule. Many other studies have reported that body movements can make the estimations of time less veridical [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]

Methods

Results

Conclusion