Reliable duration perception of external events is necessary to coordinate perception with action, precisely discriminate speech, and for other daily functions. Visual duration perception can be heavily influenced by concurrent auditory signals; however, age-related effects on this process have received minimal attention. In the present study, we examined the effect of aging on duration perception by quantifying (1) duration discrimination thresholds, (2) auditory temporal dominance, and (3) visual duration expansion/compression percepts induced by an accompanying auditory stimulus of longer/shorter duration. Duration discrimination thresholds were significantly greater for visual than auditory tasks in both age groups, however there was no effect of age. While the auditory modality retained dominance in duration perception with age, older adults still performed worse than young adults when comparing durations of two target stimuli (e.g., visual) in the presence of distractors from the other modality (e.g., auditory). Finally, both age groups perceived similar visual duration compression, whereas older adults exhibited visual duration expansion over a wider range of auditory durations compared to their younger counterparts. Results are discussed in terms of multisensory integration and possible decision strategies that change with age.

中文翻译：

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跨模态持续时间知觉的与年龄相关的影响。

对外部事件进行可靠的持续时间感知对于协调感知与行动，准确区分语音以及其他日常功能是必不可少的。视觉持续时间的感知会受到并发听觉信号的严重影响；但是，与年龄相关的影响对此过程的关注很少。在本研究中，我们通过量化（1）持续时间歧视阈值，（2）听觉时空优势和（3）伴随着较长/较短听觉刺激引起的视觉持续时间扩展/压缩知觉来检查衰老对持续时间知觉的影响持续时间。在两个年龄组中，视觉上的持续时间歧视阈值都比听觉任务大得多，但是年龄没有影响。虽然听觉方式在持续时间感知中随年龄增长而占主导地位，在比较存在其他干扰因素（例如听觉）干扰的情况下，比较两个目标刺激（例如视觉）的持续时间时，老年人的表现仍比年轻人差。最终，两个年龄组的视觉持续时间压缩都相似，而与年轻人相比，老年人在更广泛的听觉持续时间内表现出视觉持续时间扩展。根据多感官整合和随年龄变化的可能决策策略来讨论结果。与老年人相比，老年人在更大的听觉持续时间内表现出视觉持续时间的扩展。根据多感官整合和可能随年龄变化的决策策略来讨论结果。与老年人相比，老年人在更大的听觉持续时间内表现出视觉持续时间的扩展。根据多感官整合和可能随年龄变化的决策策略来讨论结果。