Salient sounds distort time perception and production

Symons, Ashley; Dick, Fred; Tierney, Adam · 2022 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1101/2022.07.04.498704

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Summary

This study investigates how salient auditory events disrupt goal-directed behavior and distort time perception. While computational models of auditory salience predict that spectrotemporal changes capture attention, previous research lacked precise measures of the time course of this behavioral disruption. The authors aimed to test whether acoustic edges (such as sound onsets or pitch shifts) cause immediate, transient disruptions in ongoing motor tasks and whether these disruptions follow a consistent time course across different acoustic features. The researchers conducted six experiments (three online and three in-lab replications) involving over 100 participants. Participants tapped along to a 2 Hz isochronous click track while ignoring task-irrelevant distractors presented halfway between clicks. The distractors varied in acoustic properties: roughness (amplitude modulation depth), volume (loud vs. soft), and pitch shift magnitude (1 vs. 6 semitones). The primary metric was the change in tap-click asynchrony at 250, 750, 1,250, and 1,750 ms after distractor onset. This design allowed for the precise measurement of behavioral disruption relative to the timing of the acoustic event. The results demonstrated that distractor presentation caused a systematic shift in tapping timing, characterized by an initial acceleration followed by a slowing down. Crucially, the most significant disruption occurred 750 ms after the distractor onset, with participants tapping earlier than the beat. This effect was modulated by salience: louder sounds and larger pitch shifts produced greater tapping shifts at 750 ms compared to softer sounds and smaller pitch shifts. However, roughness did not significantly modulate the effect. The time course of disruption was highly similar across volume and pitch manipulations, with effects dying out by 1,750 ms. Notably, these temporal distortions were observable even in the first trial of the experiment, indicating rapid attentional capture. The findings support the hypothesis that salient sounds distort time perception, likely through increased arousal that expands the subjective experience of time, causing participants to misjudge the timing of their next movement. The similarity in the time course of disruption across different acoustic features suggests that diverse auditory cues may disrupt behavior via overlapping mechanisms. The study introduces a robust, single-trial measure of behavioral disruption that can be administered online, offering a valuable tool for testing competing theories of auditory salience and linking physiological arousal to motor timing.

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Topics

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• auditory
• time perception