Serial dependence in timing at the perceptual level being modulated by working memory

Recent experiences bias the perception of following stimuli, as has been verified in various kinds of experiments in visual perception. This phenomenon, known as serial dependence, may reflect mechanisms to maintain perceptual stability. In the current study, we examined several key properties of serial dependence in temporal perception. Firstly, we examined the source of serial dependence effect in temporal perception. We found that perception without motor reproduction is sufficient to induce the sequential effect; the motor reproduction caused a stronger effect and it is achieved by biasing the perception of the future target duration rather than directly influences the subsequent movement. Secondly, we ask how the working memory influences serial dependence in the in a temporal reproduction task. By varying the delay time between standard duration and the reproduction, we showed that the strength of serial dependence enhanced as the delay increased. Those features of serial dependence are consistent with what has been observed in the visual perceptual tasks, for example, orientation perception or location perception. The similarities between the visual and the timing tasks may suggest a similar neural coding mechanism of magnitude between the visual stimuli and the duration.