Abi Wyllie¹, Alon Zivony¹; ¹University of Sheffield

Temporal integration occurs when individual features presented very close together in time are combined in our perception as a single item (e.g. seeing ‘/’ followed immediately by ‘\’, but perceiving it as ‘X’). This process allows us to combine large quantities of disparate feature information (e.g., colour, shape) into coherent objects, enabling us to detect and identify important events and navigate our environment. Research into temporal integration often uses one of two tasks: the missing dot tasks (MDT) and the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) task. In MDT, two partially filled grids are presented and participants report the location of a single unfilled cell, which can only be achieved through successful integration of the two grids. In RSVP tasks, a series of visual stimuli are presented in rapid succession, and participants report the target item based on a selection cue. In this task, temporal integration between the target and a distractor can result in binding errors, and such errors have been associated with the deployment of spatiotemporal attention. Whilst both tasks are thought to represent temporal integration, it is currently unclear whether performance in these two tasks represents a single integration mechanism. We investigated this in 2 experiments. In the first experiment, participants completed the two tasks separately and correlations between individual’s performances were measured. In the second experiment, participants completed both tasks concurrently. During the RSVP, the two MDT grids are presented alongside the target and post-target items, and participants report both the central target and the missing dot. No significant correlations were observed between the two measures of integration. These results therefore suggest that the process known as temporal integration is not caused by a single attentional mechanism. Rather, we suggest that multiple processes may determine integration.