The Characteristic Of Auditory Duration Cognition Segmentation

Time is everywhere,but it is a mystery.The analysis of time is the most difficult and most important of all phenomenological problems.It attracts researchers from many disciplines,such as philosophy,sociology,psychology,biology,medicine,history and aesthetics.Psychology has particularity in the study of time among them,because people’s psychological perception for a period of time is often different from the actual physical time.There are wonderful description in Chinese languages,such as “missing you one day is like being separated for three autumns” or "it seems like yesterday,but also like many years".Besides,there is also an advantage for psychology to the exploration of time.It is good at defining the operational definition of abstract concepts,which is also the unique charm and originality of psychology.Thus,many psychologists explore the problems that are closely related to us from the perspective of human psychology,that is,human cognition,emotion,belief and behavior,etc.The cognition of time is very wide,from millisecond,second,minute,hour,day,month,and year to longer.In view of the fact that one of the hot research problem is the representation of time in contemporary time psychology,Chinese psychologist HuangXiting led the academic team put forward the range synthetic model of temporal cognition,that human processing and characterization of such a large span of time should have different ways,namely segmentation.And they have found the psychological structure of the future and past,which were symmetrical and centered on the present.They divided into three psychological time,and the units for calculating time was from "second" or "minute" to "year".However,when people talk about the "past" and "future",there will always be a concept of "present" consciously or unconsciously in the brain,which serves as a reference point for the two.Present is the bridge between the past and the future.It generates an integrated,coherent,overall sense of what is going on.It is also known as “specious now” or “subjective present”and so forth,and there is a limit for it.It argued that the limit is about 5 seconds,with an average of 2~3 seconds.Recent studies are mostly focused on 2~3 seconds.It is supported by the studies adopted duration reproduction task,sensorimotor synchronization task and subjective rhythmization task.Although the above studies support the characteristic of duration segmentation below and above 3 seconds,they can only provide indirect evidence for the limit of the present,and which is difficult to directly prove that the reason for the above segmentation is related to the limitation of present.Therefore,it is difficult for future research to select the direct and effective measurement,which has also become a breakthrough in this study.In addition,the range synthetic model of temporal cognition also believe that human beings for each kind of duration cognition is comprehensive,many factors will affect the perception of time,including the physical properties(such as the modality characteristics,the number of events and the structure,temporal order,etc),the cognitive characteristics of the individuals(such as attention resources,encoding,segmentation and extraction strategy and working memory),individual personality(such as personality types,types of self construal and time beliefs)and individual emotion,disease,occupation,etc.In other words,the limit of "present" will also be affected by the above factors.In summary,the present study focus on the psychological time of the “present”under the guidance of the range synthesis model of temporal cognition.We used behavioral and electrophysiological methods to explore the characteristics of auditory duration from the perspective of the close relationship between time and working memory considering the advantages of auditory modality in time processing.And we choose alpha oscillations which reflect the successful maintenance of information in working memory.To a certain extent,we will enrich and refine the theoretical views of the range synthesis model of temporal cognition within the "present" time range.In the present study,three studies and seven experiments were designed to investigate the characteristic of auditory duration cognition segmentation.And these three studies were:(1)the characteristic of auditory filled duration cognition segmentation;(2)the characteristic of auditory empty duration cognition segmentation;(3)the influence of working memory capacity on the characteristic of auditory duration cognition segmentation.In the first study,four experiments were used to explore the characteristic of auditory filled duration cognition segmentation.In Experiment 1,duration reproduction task was used to compare the difference of perceived length between auditory and visual modalities from 1s to 4s.We found the modality effect of duration perception,i.e.,auditory signals were always perceived longer than visual signals for a given duration.In Experiment 2,electroencephalogram(EEG)and matching-to-sample task were used to investigate the characteristic of auditory filled duration cognition segmentation in working memory.The EEG results showed that there were different internal representations of auditory filled duration below and above 2s,which is the limit of present in the form of auditory filled duration.The alpha band amplitude was obviously enhanced during 1-s and 2-s duration conditions,while it was obviously decreased or even disappeared during 3-s and 4-s duration conditions.In Experiment 3,the design of experiment was improved based on Weber’s law to control the different task difficulty among different duration conditions.Then Experiment 4 used EEG technology confirmed the 2s limit for auditory filled duration after excluding the interfere of task difficulty.It indicates that the limit of auditory filled duration is shorter than that ofvisual filled duration,which probably because the modality effect between auditory and visual modality.That is,the longer the perceived duration is,the shorter the maximum limit can be maintained for the working memory with a limited capacity.Moreover,the segmentation of duration is related to the length of duration,but not the task difficulty.In the second study,two experiments were used to explore the characteristic of auditory empty duration cognition segmentation.In Experiment 5,duration reproduction task was used to compare the difference of perceived length between filled and empty durations in auditory modality from 1s to 4s.We found the filled duration illusion,i.e.,filled durations were always perceived longer than the empty ones for a given duration.In Experiment 6,electroencephalogram(EEG)and matching-to-sample task were used to investigate the characteristic of auditory empty duration cognition segmentation in working memory.The EEG results showed that there were different internal representations of auditory filled duration below and above 1s,which is the limit of present in the form of auditory empty duration.The alpha band amplitude was obviously enhanced in the 1-s duration condition,while it was obviously decreased or even disappeared during 2-s,3-s and 4-s duration conditions.It indicates that the limit of auditory empty duration is shorter than that of filled duration in the first study,which was not appropriate to explain by the perceived duration difference.We speculate that it is likely to be related to the continuous or discrete presentation of these two types of duration,i.e.,people are more likely to perceive the beginning and end marks of the empty duration as two independent events but not an entirety.So it is more difficulty for the empty duration to maintain as a whole unit in working memory,and the limit is shorter.In the third study,working memory capacity which is usually regarded as an important cognitive variable to distinguish individual differences as the object of investigation.And the influence of working memory capacity on the characteristic of auditory duration cognition segmentation was discussed from the perspective of individual differences.The Experiment 7a used the matching-to-sample task identified two groups of people: the high and low working memory capacity participants.InExperiment 7b,EEG technology and the matching-to-sample task was used to explore the influence of working memory capacity on the characteristic of auditory duration cognition segmentation.The EEG results showed that there were individual differences for the segmentation of auditory duration cognition.What’s more,the limit of high working memory capacity participants is 3s,which is longer than that of low working memory capacity participants(1s).It indicated that working memory capacity is a factor affecting the segmentation of auditory duration cognition.The higher the working memory capacity,the longer the maximum limit of duration maintained in working memory,and vice versa.It corresponds to the limit of “present”.The present study used the innovative research perspective and the advanced technical approach to explore the characteristics of auditory duration cognition segmentation for the first time under the guidance of the range synthesis model of the temporal cognition.We will enrich and refine the theoretical views of the range synthesis model of temporal cognition within the "present" time range to a certain extent.On the other hand,we provided direct evidence for the limit of the present based on the function of the alpha oscillations,and we also provided an effective measurement indicator for future study.Besides,we also prove that the representation boundary of the duration(i.e.,the present limit)is not static from the point of view of physical characteristics and individual cognitive differences.It will be influenced by the modality of duration,the presentation of duration and the individual’s working memory capacity.It provides an important perspective to explain the duration cognition segmentation mechanism and to understand how time is characterized in the human brain.Future studies still need to further explore the mechanism of these factors and their applicable conditions.And the results will also need to extend to the medical,aerospace and human-computer interaction in future.