Exogenous visual attention prolongs perceived duration

• Published in: Attention, perception & psychophysics Vol. 73; no. 1; pp. 68 - 85
• Main Authors: Seifried, Tanja, Ulrich, Rolf
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer-Verlag 2011; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Arithmetic; Arousal; Attention; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Psychology; Contrast Sensitivity; Cues; Discrimination (Psychology); Experiments; Eyes & eyesight; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Illusions; Judgment; Male; Mental Computation; Orientation; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perception; Prompting; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor Performance; Psychophysics; Saccades; Spatial perception. Time perception; Stimuli; Time Perception; Vision; Visual Stimuli; Young Adult; Spatial attention; Exogenous cuing; Perceived duration; Human; Vision; Stimulus duration; Cognition; Experimental study; Visual attention; Time perception
• ISSN: 1943-3921; 1943-393X
• DOI: 10.3758/s13414-010-0005-6

Previous studies have shown that spatial attention prolongs the perceived duration of visual stimuli. Chen and O’Neill ( Perception & Psychophysics, 63 , 1229–1238, 2001 ) reported, however, the reversed result and thus challenged the generality of this attention effect. We therefore reinvestigated the influence of spatial attention on the perceived duration of visual stimuli in various experimental settings. In five experiments, perceived duration was longer for validly cued stimuli; thus, spatial attention was found to prolong perceived duration. In a further experiment, the specific conditions were such that neither the attention effect nor the reversed pattern, as found by Chen and O’Neill, emerged. Although we cannot provide a conclusive account of why Chen and O’Neill observed the reversed attention effect, the present results reinforce the generality of the spatial attention effect on perceived duration but also make advisable a systematic examination of the factors that might modulate this effect.