posted on 2017-09-12, 12:36authored byChayada Chotsrisuparat, Arno Koning, Richard Jacobs, Rob van Lier
<p>We studied the expected moment of reappearance of a moving object after
it disappeared from sight. In particular, we investigated whether auditory
rhythms influence time to contact (TTC) judgments. Using displays in which a
moving disk disappears behind an occluder, we examined whether an accompanying
auditory rhythm influences the expected TTC of an occluded moving object. We
manipulated a baseline auditory rhythm — consisting of equal sound and pause
durations — in two ways: either the pause durations or the sound durations were
increased to create slower rhythms. Participants had to press a button at the
moment they expected the disk to reappear. Variations in pause duration
(Experiments 1 and 2) affected expected TTC, in contrast to variations in sound
duration (Experiment 3). These results show that auditory rhythms affect
expected reappearance of an occluded moving object. Second, these results
suggest that temporal auditory grouping is an important factor in TTC.</p>