Distinct Sequential Effects in Space and Time: Repulsion in Direction Judgments and Attraction in Time Reproduction

Abstract

AbstractOur current perception and decision-making are continuously shaped by recent experiences, a phenomenon known as sequential dependence. While it is well-documented in spatial perception and has been recently explored in time perception, their functional similarities across space and time remain elusive, particularly in relation to tasks and working memory loads. To address these questions, we designed a unified experimental paradigm, employing coherent motion stimulus, for both spatial direction and time reproduction tasks. Experiment 1 involved a pre-cue setting where participants were informed about the task before the stimulus presentation, while Experiment 2 used a post-cue setting, informing participants of the task after the stimulus presentation. Our findings reveal a consistent attraction bias in time reproduction and a dominant repulsion in spatial direction estimation. Notably, the temporal attraction was more pronounced when the preceding task was also time-related, compared to a direction task. In contrast, the direction repulsion in spatial tasks remained unaffected by the nature of the preceding task. Additionally, both attraction and repulsion biases were intensified by the post-cue compared to the pre-cue. These findings underscore distinct sequential effects in spatial and temporal tasks, suggesting that while sensory processing and adaptation primarily shape spatial repulsion biases, temporal attraction biases are more influenced by working memory load at the post-perceptual processing.