Schedule of Events | Symposia

How Time Perception is Shaped by Distance and Spatial Tool-use Training in Physical and Virtual Environments

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Amir Jahanian Najafabadi¹ (amir.jahanian@uni-bielefeld.de), Christoph Kayser¹; ¹Cognitive Neuroscience Department, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

Previous work has suggested that our perception of time is plastic and dependent on the distance of the stimulus from our body, and that can be remapped in an action- and effector-dependent manner during spatial tool-use training. We here aimed to replicate and extend these results in a series of experiments where we probed 280 participants on three temporal tasks (visual bisection) for stimuli presented at three distances from the body (60, 120 & 240 cm) presented in physical and virtual reality environments. In between testing blocks, participants performed active tool-use training, using a physical or virtual mechanical grabber to move coins located at 120 and 200 cm from the body. The effect of spatial distance, tool-use training, and their interaction for each task were examined. Results suggest temporal reproduction was significantly influenced by interval duration, spatial distance, and training sessions across various experiments. Active tool-use training and environmental conditions (physical vs. virtual) further modulated these effects, with significant interactions between session (pre – and post-test) and distance (Near, Far, Extra-Far), tool-length, effector (moved them toward their body or side-to-side), spatially localized feedback about the durations, as well as interval and condition, highlighting the impact of training and environmental context on time perception. Importantly, no significant differences were found in physical environments, but an overall effect on duration estimates by virtual tool-use was observed. We conclude that overall active tool-use training led to adaptive changes in time perception, particularly in relation to spatial, feedback, and environmental contexts.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Multisensory