Abstract: The serial dependence effect refers to the influence of immediately preceding experiences on subsequent perceptual processing. Previous research has identified two types of serial dependence in the duration bisection task: a repulsive stimulus serial dependence effect and an attractive response serial dependence effect. Notably, both effects have been shown to exhibit modality specificity, meaning they do not generalize across sensory modalities such as vision and audition. Considering the distinctions between duration bisection and duration reproduction tasks, it remains unclear whether similar stimulus and response serial dependence effects also occur in duration reproduction, and whether they generalize across sensory modalities. In the present study, we investigated serial dependence and its cross-modal effects in the duration reproduction task, and further assessed how task paradigm shapes cross-modal stimulus and response serial dependence in duration perception.
The duration reproduction task and generalized linear models were used across three experiments. In Experiment 1, 24 participants with no prior exposure to the task completed visual and auditory duration reproduction tasks in separate blocks. Participants reproduced the duration of a test stimulus—one of five durations ranging from 500 to 1200 ms in equal logarithmic steps—by pressing and holding a button for the matching duration. Experiment 2 involved a new group of 25 participants and followed a similar procedure, except that visual and auditory stimuli were pseudorandomly presented within a single block. In Experiment 3, 32 different participants completed both duration reproduction and duration bisection tasks. The reproduction task was identical to that in Experiment 2, while in the bisection task, participants judged whether the test stimulus was longer or shorter than an intermediate reference stimulus once it disappeared.
The results of Experiment 1 showed that the previous stimulus and previous reproduction exerted opposite effects on serial dependence: current duration estimates were repelled by the prior stimulus duration (repulsive stimulus serial dependence) but attracted toward the prior reproduction (attractive response serial dependence). Experiment 2 further indicated that both stimulus and response serial dependence effects could partially generalize across visual and auditory modalities, contrasting with the modality-specific effects observed in earlier studies employing the duration bisection task. However, the test durations in Experiment 2 were longer than those typically employed in previous duration bisection tasks. To rule out any influence of test duration and to further investigate the impact of task paradigm on cross-modal serial dependence, we conducted Experiment 3. Consistent with Experiment 2, both stimulus and response serial dependence effects partially generalized across modalities in the duration reproduction task. In contrast, in the duration bisection task, both effects remained modality-specific, aligning with earlier studies. These findings suggest that task paradigm plays a crucial role in modulating cross-modal serial dependence in duration perception.
These results provide evidence that both previous stimulus and previous responses affect subsequent duration perception, eliciting a repulsive stimulus serial dependence effect and an attractive response serial dependence effect, respectively. This indicates that distinct mechanisms underlie the use of prior stimulus and response information in duration processing. Moreover, task paradigm modulates the cross-modal effects of serial dependence in duration perception. One possible explanation is that reproduction response facilitates integration of visual and auditory temporal encoding, diminishing categorical distinctions between modalities and thereby promoting cross-modal stimulus and response serial dependence effects. These results indicate that stimulus serial dependence is not solely explained by low-level perceptual adaptation but also involves higher-level cognitive processing, whereas response serial dependence reflects more than mechanical decision inertia, involving the integration of response strategies across trials.

Key words: serial dependence, task paradigm, stimulus, response, cross-modal