THE MECHANISM OF INTERVAL TIMING: LEARNING AND GENERALIZATION EFFECT OF INACCURATE FEEDBACK

Authors

  • Chihiro Saito
  • Tadayuki Tayama

Abstract

Interval timing, the ability to perceive intervals ranged from seconds to minutes, is affected by performance feedback. Accurate feedback reduces absolute errors from targeted performance and the variability. Inaccurate feedback adjusts produced time length accordingly. The present study investigated whether performance feedback effect can be generalized across different durations. A three-phrase experiment composed of a time production task with a start-stop procedure was conducted. In the first and second phases, participants produced 10-sec intervals, and then they performed 30-sec intervals in the third phase. Only in the second phase, they were randomly assigned to one of 4 feedback groups (accurate, 80 and 125 %-inaccurate-feedback, and no-feedback). In the second and third phases, reduction of absolute errors and group variability was found among accurate and inaccurate feedback groups. The performance in inaccurate feedback groups was shifted proportionately to the feedback in these phases. Although the effect on the group variability was found, the individual variability was not changed across phases. These results support that performance feedback has generalization effect on interval timing.

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