Abstract
Temporal binding refers to the subjective shortening of time between a cause and its effect compared with two unrelated events. The effect has been extensively explored over the past two decades and manifests across a robust range of paradigms, reflecting two distinct expressions of binding: (1) the subjective shortening of elapsed time between cause and effect and (2) the subjective attraction of cause and effect to each other. However, whether and how these binding expressions are related is still largely unknown. In this study, we report two experiments, employing four tasks (stimulus anticipation, Libet clock, interval estimation, and reproduction). We computed within and between session and task correlations across two (Experiment 1) and six (Experiment 2) sessions. Across both experiments, we successfully replicated temporal binding in temporal estimation, temporal reproduction, and the Libet clock, but not in stimulus anticipation. Good within-task and within-session reliability were observed, but reliability between sessions was poor. Correlation analyses revealed associations between binding effects measured via temporal estimation and temporal reproduction, underscoring task-dependent variations, in line with the suggestion that different temporal tasks tap into distinct facets of the temporal binding effect. This nuanced understanding contributes to refining experimental paradigms and advancing the comprehension of human temporal processing. The data, materials, and experiments from the present study are publicly available.
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Data availability
The data and materials from the present study are publicly available at the Open Science Framework website: https://osf.io/tk8f6/
Code availability
The experiments from the present study are publicly available at the Open Science Framework website: https://osf.io/tk8f6/
Notes
One participant completed their final experimental session 53 days after their fifth session. Although a few participants had intervals of up to 28 and 29 days, this 53-day interval is considered an outlier, as most participants experienced significantly shorter intervals between sessions. In general, the time slots were scheduled to minimise the interval between sessions.
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Funding
A.M.C. was supported by Grant #2017/25161–8, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and by Grant #2019/08885–8, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). G.B.A. was supported by Grant #2021/13386–0, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and by Grant #2019/25572–3, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
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Significance statement
A sense of time is crucial for many behaviours. A well-known phenomenon in time perception is temporal binding, where the subjective time between cause and effect appears shorter than between unrelated events. Binding has been demonstrated across a range of contexts and paradigms, and results have been generalised between and across contexts. We examined whether different methods measuring this effect yield similar results. Some measures correlated, indicating consistency, while others did not, suggesting different methods tap into distinct mechanisms. Our findings deepen our understanding of temporal binding mechanisms across varied measurement approaches, offering insights for advancing foundational theories of time perception.
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de Azevedo, G.B., Cravo, A.M. & Buehner, M.J. Temporal binding: Task-dependent variations and reliability across experimental paradigms. Atten Percept Psychophys 87, 650–669 (2025). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-024-02996-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-024-02996-2