Task-oriented Bayesian inference in interval timing: People use their prior reproduction experience to calibrate time reproduction

The estimation of duration has been shown to follow Bayesian inference, where people use their prior belief to calibrate the estimation. This explains timing biases such as the range bias where a duration is reproduced as longer when previously encountered durations were longer than shorter. However, it is unclear whether prior belief is based on previously perceived or reproduced durations. In 4 experiments, we show that the range bias occurs between short and long reproduction ranges but not between short and long perception ranges. Further analyses also show that the prior is updated by the most recent reproduced (but not perceived) duration. Together these results support a task-oriented Bayesian inference account of time reproduction, where people use the perceived duration and their past reproduction experience to make an inference about how much time to reproduce.