Looming Losses in Future Time Perception

Adaptive sex differences in auditory motion perception: looming sounds are special.

In 4 experiments, the authors examined sex differences in audiospatial perception of sounds that moved toward and away from the listener. Experiment 1 showed that both men and women underestimated the time-to-arrival of full-cue looming sounds. However, this perceptual bias was significantly stronger among women than among men. In Experiment 2, listeners estimated the terminal distance of sound...

Looming sounds are perceived as faster than receding sounds

Each year thousands of people are killed by looming motor vehicles. Throughout our evolutionary history looming objects have posed a threat to survival and perceptual systems have evolved unique solutions to confront these environmental challenges. Vision provides an accurate representation of time-to-contact with a looming object and usually allows us to interact successfully with the object i...

Sex difference in subjective duration of looming and receding sounds.

Looming sounds (sounds increasing in intensity over time) are more salient than receding sounds (a looming sound reversed in time). For example, they are estimated as being longer, louder, and more changing in loudness than receding sounds. Some authors interpret the looming salience as evolutionarily adaptive, because it increases the margins of safety of the perceiver in the case of preparato...

Threat modulates perception of looming visual stimuli

Among the most critical of visual functions is the detection of potentially hazardous or threatening aspects of the environment. For example, objects on a collision course with an observer must be quickly identified to allow sufficient time to prepare appropriate defensive or avoidant responses. Directly approaching objects produce a specific accelerating pattern of optical expansion, known as ...

Threat Modulates Perception of Looming RUNNING HEAD: Threat Modulates Perception of Looming Threat Modulates Perception of Looming Visual Stimuli