Human vision reconstructs time to satisfy causal constraints

Bechlivanidis, Christos, Buehner, Marc ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4202-7511, Tecwyn, Emma, Lagnado, David, Hoerl, Christoph and McCormack, Teresa 2022. Human vision reconstructs time to satisfy causal constraints. Psychological Science 33 (2) , pp. 224-235. 10.1177/09567976211032663

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Abstract

The goal of perception is to infer the most plausible source of sensory stimulation. Unisensory perception of temporal order, however, appears to require no inference, since the order of events can be uniquely determined from the order in which sensory signals arrive. Here we demonstrate a novel perceptual illusion that casts doubt on this intuition: in three studies (N=607) the experienced event timings are determined by causality in real-time. Adult observers viewed a simple three-item sequence ACB, which is typically remembered as ABC (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2016), in line with principles of causality. When asked to indicate the time at which events B and C occurred, points of subjective simultaneity shifted so that the assumed cause B appeared earlier and the assumed effect C later, despite full attention and repeated viewings. This first demonstration of causality reversing perceived temporal order cannot be explained by post-perceptual distortion, lapsed attention, or saccades.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	SAGE
ISSN:	0956-7976
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 July 2021
Date of Acceptance:	23 May 2021
Last Modified:	06 Nov 2023 20:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/142306

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