The interaction between time and number in a temporal bisection task: a reply to Vicario (2011)

Abstract. We discuss the results of Vicario (2011, Perception 40 23-29), in the light of an experiment designed to bypass some of the limits of that study. There, participants were asked to perform a temporal bisection on numerical stimuli (small or large digits) presented either for 700/900 ms or 2000/2200 ms. For the two longest durations only, bisections of larger digits occurred later than those of smaller digits. Here, subjects judged the temporal position of a flick occurring during the visual presentation of a digit (1, 5, or 9) which lasted on the screen for either 700 ms or 2000 ms. Results revealed no difference in the perceived temporal midpoints of large compared to small digits. In contrast, they showed a response bias: only with the shortest-duration stimuli the digit's magnitude affected the subject's response.