Temporal Recalibration: Does Awareness Influence How We Perceive Time?

Abstract

After exposure to a short, constant delay between voluntary movement and sensory stimuli, temporal recalibration (TR) arises to realign asynchronous stimuli. The objective of this study was to determine if awareness of the temporal lag between a motor response (i.e., a keypress) and a sensory event (i.e., a visual flash) is necessary for TR to occur. We further investigated whether manipulating the motor and judgment tasks required modifies the influence of awareness on TR due to the cognitive processes engaged. Participants (n = 22) were randomly divided between two groups (Group 1: Aware and Group 2: Unaware). The Aware group was told of the temporal lag between their keypress and visual flash at the beginning of the experiment, whereas the Unaware group was not. All participants completed 8 blocks of trials, in which the motor tasks (e.g., a single or repetitive tap), judgment tasks (e.g., judging the order of the keypress in relation to the visual flash or judging whether the two stimuli were simultaneous or not), and temporal lag between keypress and visual flash (e.g., a 0 ms or 100 ms lag) varied. TR was determined by comparing judgments between corresponding blocks of trials in which the temporal lag was 0 ms to 100 ms. Results revealed that both the Aware and Unaware groups of participants demonstrated TR across both motor and judgment tasks, and that the magnitude of TR did not vary across Aware and Unaware participants or tasks. Thus, results of the present study revealed that awareness of a temporal lag does not influence the magnitude of motor-sensory TR achieved.