To Bind or Not to Bind? Different Temporal Binding Effects from Voluntary Pressing and Releasing Actions

Ke Zhao,Wen-Jing Yan,Yu-Hsin Chen,Xiaolan Fu,Luis M Martinez

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064819

Ke Zhao, Wen-Jing Yan + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064819

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Abstract

Binding effect refers to the perceptual attraction between an action and an outcome leading to a subjective compression of time. Most studies investigating binding effects exclusively employ the “pressing” action without exploring other types of actions. The present study addresses this issue by introducing another action, releasing action or the voluntary lifting of the finger/wrist, to investigate the differences between voluntary pressing and releasing actions. Results reveal that releasing actions led to robust yet short-lived temporal binding effects, whereas pressing condition had steady temporal binding effects up to super-seconds. The two actions also differ in sensitivity to changes in temporal contiguity and contingency, which could be attributed to the difference in awareness of action. Extending upon current models of “willed action,” our results provide insights from a temporal point of view and support the concept of a dual system consisting of predictive motor control and top-down mechanisms.

Highlights

Subjective compression of the temporal interval between selfgenerated actions and their consequent outcome demonstrated a perceptual attraction or binding effect towards each other [1,2,3,4]
The purpose of the present study is to explore whether other voluntary actions would lead to different temporal binding results, and if so, investigate the role temporal contiguity, contingency, presentation duration, and interstimulus intervals (ISI) plays in creating different temporal binding results
It has been demonstrated by many studies that causality or predictive motor control models or both are involved in determining binding effect [1,14,15,16,17,22] yet few studies have generated short-lived yet robust temporal binding effect such as those for releasing condition in Experiment 1a

Summary

Introduction

Subjective compression of the temporal interval between selfgenerated actions and their consequent outcome demonstrated a perceptual attraction or binding effect towards each other [1,2,3,4]. Since binding effect occurred after willed actions [6], one theory attributes distortions of time perception to the speed of the ‘‘internal clock’’ [7,8,9] which varied with stimulation and motor activity [10] Another theory explains temporal illusions as recalibrations of perceived onset time of sensory events. Predictable events, such as those caused by voluntary actions, may be pre-dated in order to ensure sense of agency [1,11], causality [12], or perceptual constancy [13]. Recent studies by Cravo et al [16,17] support the idea that both intentionality and causality are necessary by demonstrating that alone, neither intentional actions nor causality leads to binding effects

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