Sensory processing sensitivity shapes the temporal dynamics of auditory bistability

Perceptual experience is shaped not only by external input but also by stable individual traits. Here, we investigated how sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), a personality trait reflecting responsiveness to external input, modulates the temporal dynamics of bistable auditory streaming. Forty-eight participants listened to repeating triplet-tone sequences and reported their percepts as they switched between an integrated one-stream and a segregated two-stream state. Higher SPS was reliably associated with longer percept durations and fewer switches overall. To probe the underlying mechanisms, we used an interpretable modeling approach. First, we treated each switch as a perceptual decision and modeled it with a hierarchical drift-diffusion framework. This revealed an asymmetric effect: higher SPS was associated with faster drift and shorter non-decision times when switching from integration to segregation. Second, discrete-time hazard analyses showed that, right after a percept became dominant, higher SPS reduced the probability of its termination. Together, the modeling results show that higher SPS stabilizes the temporal dynamics of auditory organization through a combination of enhanced sensitivity to segregation cues combined with a slower “internal clock” for evidence accumulation. These findings illustrate how the microdynamics of perceptual bistability can reveal the specific impact of individual traits on perception.