Sensory adaptation experiments have revealed the existence of ‘rate after-effects’ - adapting to a relatively fast rate makes an intermediate test rate feel slow, and adapting to a slow rate makes the same moderate test rate feel fast. The present work aims to deconstruct the concept of rate and clarify how exactly the brain processes a regular sequence of sensory signals. We ask whether rate forms a distinct perceptual metric, or whether it is simply the perceptual aggregate of the intervals between its component signals. Subjects were exposed to auditory or visual temporal rates (a ‘slow’ rate of 1.5 Hz and a ‘fast’ rate of 6 Hz), before being tested with single unfilled intervals of varying durations. Results show adapting to a given rate strongly influences the perceived duration of a single empty interval. This effect is robust across both interval reproduction and duration discrimination judgments. These findings challenge our understanding of rate perception. Specifically, they suggest that contrary to some previous assertions, the perception of sequence rate is strongly influenced by the perception of the sequence’s component duration intervals.

感觉适应实验揭示了“速率后效应”的存在——适应相对较快的速率会使中间的测试速率感觉很慢，而适应较慢的速率会使同样中等的测试速率感觉很快。目前的工作旨在解构速率的概念，并阐明大脑如何准确地处理规则的感觉信号序列。我们询问速率是否构成了一种独特的感知度量，或者它是否只是其组成信号之间的间隔的感知聚合。在使用不同持续时间的单个未填充间隔进行测试之前，受试者接受听觉或视觉时间速率（1.5 Hz 的“慢”速率和 6 Hz 的“快”速率）。结果表明，适应给定的速率会强烈影响单个空间隔的感知持续时间。这种效应在区间再现和持续时间判别判断中都很强大。这些发现挑战了我们对利率感知的理解。具体来说，他们认为与之前的一些断言相反，对序列速率的感知受到对序列组成部分持续时间间隔的感知的强烈影响。