A Bayesian Perspective on Accumulation in the Magnitude System

Theoretical and empirical work posits the existence of a common magnitude system in the brain. Such a proposal implies that manipulating stimuli in one magnitude dimension (e.g. time) should interfere with the subjective estimation of another magnitude dimension (e.g. space). Here, we asked whether a generalized Bayesian magnitude estimation system would sample sensory evidence using a common, amodal prior. Two psychophysical experiments separately tested participants on their perception of duration, surface, and numerosity when non-target magnitude dimensions and the rate of sensory evidence accumulation were manipulated. First, we found that duration estimation was resilient to changes in surface or numerosity, whereas lengthening (shortening) duration yielded under- (over-) estimations of surface and numerosity. Second, the perception of numerosity and surface were affected by changes in the rate of sensory evidence accumulation, whereas duration was not. Our results suggest that a generalized magnitude system based on Bayesian computations would minimally necessitate multiple priors.