Color Sensitivity of the Duration Aftereffect Depends on Sub- and Supra-second Durations

Abstract

The perception of duration becomes biased after repetitive duration adaptation; this is known as the duration aftereffect. The duration aftereffect exists in both the sub-second and supra-second ranges. However, it is unknown whether the properties and mechanisms of the adaptation aftereffect differ between sub-second and supra-second durations. In the present study, we addressed this question by investigating the color sensitivity of the duration aftereffect in the sub-second (Experiment 1) and supra-second (Experiment 2) ranges separately. We found that the duration aftereffect in the sub-second range could only partly transfer across different visual colors, whereas the duration aftereffect in the supra-second range could completely transfer across different visual colors. That is, the color-sensitivity of the duration aftereffect in the sub-second duration was stronger than that in the supra-second duration. These results imply that the mechanisms underlying the adaptation aftereffects of the sub-second and supra-second ranges are distinct.

Keywords: color sensitivity; duration aftereffect; perception; sub-second; supra-second.

Figure 1

Schematic representation of the experiment. In the adaptation phase, participants viewed 100 repetitions of the adaptation stimulus (white disk; 200 or 800 ms) in the center of the screen. In the subsequent test phase, participants were asked to press the “ENTER” key to reproduce the duration of the test stimulus when the black square appeared. The colors of the test stimuli were presented randomly.

Figure 2

Interaction between the conditions of Experiment 1. Error bars represent standard errors. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001.

Figure 3

Plot of paired-samples t-test. (A) Refers to Experiment 1 and (B) to Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard errors. *p < 0.05.