title: Temporal integration windows for naturalistic visual sequences.
abstract: There is increasing evidence that the brain possesses mechanisms to integrate incoming sensory information as it unfolds over time-periods of 2-3 seconds. The ubiquity of this mechanism across modalities, tasks, perception and production has led to the proposal that it may underlie our experience of the subjective present. A critical test of this claim is that this phenomenon should be apparent in naturalistic visual experiences. We tested this using movie-clips as a surrogate for our day-to-day experience, temporally scrambling them to require (re-) integration within and beyond the hypothesized 2-3 second interval. Two independent experiments demonstrate a step-wise increase in the difficulty to follow stimuli at the hypothesized 2-3 second scrambling condition. Moreover, only this difference could not be accounted for by low-level visual properties. This provides the first evidence that this 2-3 second integration window extends to complex, naturalistic visual sequences more consistent with our experience of the subjective present.
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Scott L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Fairhall
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Albi
authors.affiliation: Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Melcher
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D019336:Cognitive Science; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*