LE3 .A278 2009

2009

Brodeur, Darlene

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology

Psychology

The present study explored the effects of sensory modality, culture, and stimulus complexity on time perception. Simple shapes, pure tones, complex pictures, and natural sounds were presented individually or in congruent pairs for durations ranging from 300 to 900 ms. Thirty-nine undergraduates from two cultures, East Asian and North American, were asked to make relative duration judgements. It was hypothesized that Asians would use contextual information and show integration for the complex cross-modal condition, while North Americans would not integrate information and instead would rely on auditory information alone. A temporal bisection task was used to assess timing sensitivity. Results were understood within the Scalar Timing Theory. Consistent with previous research, visual stimuli were judged as shorter than auditory stimuli. Although culture hypotheses were not met, there was a significant interaction between Modality, Complexity, and Duration in which complex conditions and the simple visual condition were significantly different than simple auditory and cross-modal conditions.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:635