Repetition enhancement and memory effects for duration

Abstract

A remarkable aspect of conscious perception is that moments carryover from one to the next, also known as temporal continuity. This ability is thus crucial for detecting regularities, such as in speech and music, and may rely on an accurate perception of time. Investigations of human time perception have detailed two electroencephalographic (EEG) components associated with timing, the contingent negative variation (CNV) and late positive component of timing (LPCt); however, the precise roles of these components in timing remain elusive. Recently, we demonstrated that the perception of duration is influenced by durations presented on prior trials, which we explained by the creation of an implicit memory standard that adapts to local changes in sequence presentation. Here, we turn to the neural basis of this effect. Human participants performed a temporal bisection task in which they were required to classify the duration of auditory stimuli into short and long duration categories; crucially, the presentation order was first-order counterbalanced, allowing us to measure the effect of each presented duration on the next. EEG recordings revealed that the CNV and LPCt signals both covaried with the duration presented on the current trial, with CNV predicting reaction time and LPCt predicting choice. Additionally, both signals covaried with the duration presented in the prior trial but in different ways, with the CNV amplitude reflecting the change in the memory standard and the LPCt reflecting decision uncertainty. Furthermore, we observed a repetition enhancement effect of duration only for the CNV, suggesting that this signal additionally indexes the similarity of successive durations. These findings demonstrate dissociable roles for the CNV and LPCt, and demonstrate that both signals are continuously updated on a trial-by-trial basis that reflects shifts in temporal decisions.