Time perception

About: Time perception is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1918 publications have been published within this topic receiving 87020 citations.

Sensory adaptation for timing perception.

Abstract: Recent sensory experience modifies subjective timing perception. For example, when visual events repeatedly lead auditory events, such as when the sound and video tracks of a movie are out of sync, subsequent vision-leads-audio presentations are reported as more simultaneous. This phenomenon could provide insights into the fundamental problem of how timing is represented in the brain, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we show that the effect of recent experience on timing perception is not just subjective; recent sensory experience also modifies relative timing discrimination. This result indicates that recent sensory history alters the encoding of relative timing in sensory areas, excluding explanations of the subjective phenomenon based only on decision-level changes. The pattern of changes in timing discrimination suggests the existence of two sensory components, similar to those previously reported for visual spatial attributes: a lateral shift in the nonlinear transducer that maps relative timing into perceptual relative timing and an increase in transducer slope around the exposed timing. The existence of these components would suggest that previous explanations of how recent experience may change the sensory encoding of timing, such as changes in sensory latencies or simple implementations of neural population codes, cannot account for the effect of sensory adaptation on timing perception.

The Role of Prospection in Steep Temporal Reward Discounting in Gambling Addiction.

Abstract: Addiction and pathological gambling (PG) have been consistently associated with high impulsivity and a steep devaluation of delayed rewards, a process that is known as temporal discounting (TD). Recent studies indicated that enhanced episodic future thinking (EFT) results in less impulsive TD in healthy controls (HCs). In a separate line of research, it has been suggested that non-linearities in time perception might contribute to reward devaluation during inter-temporal choice. Therefore, in addition to deficits in valuation processes and executive control, impairments in EFT and non-linearities in time perception have been hypothesized to contribute to steep TD in addiction. In this study, we explore such a potential association of impairments in EFT and time perception with steep TD in PG. We investigated 20 PGs and 20 matched HCs. TD was assessed via a standard computerized binary choice task. EFT was measured using a variation of the Autobiographical Memory Interview by Levine et al. (1). Time perception was assessed with a novel task, utilizing a non-linear rating procedure via circle-size adjustments. Groups did not differ in baseline EFT. In both groups, a power law accounted time perception best, and the degree of non-linearity in time perception correlated with discounting across groups. A multiple regression analysis across all predictors and covariates revealed that only group status (PG/HC) and depression were significantly associated with discounting behavior such that PG increased TD and depression attenuated TD. Our findings speak against the idea that steep TD in PG is due to a skewed perception of time or impairments in EFT, at least under the present task conditions. The lack of overall group differences in EFT does not rule out the possibility of more complex interactions of EFT and decision-making. These interactions might be diminished in pathological gambling or addiction more generally, when other task configurations are used.

A "view from nowhen" on time perception experiments.

Abstract: Systematic errors in time reproduction tasks have been interpreted as a misperception of time and therefore seem to contradict basic assumptions of pacemaker-accumulator models. Here we propose an alternative explanation of this phenomenon based on methodological constraints regarding the direction of time, which cannot be manipulated in experimental settings. In two experiments, we demonstrate the influence of the direction of a dimensional change for pitch and brightness estimates. The results support the assumption that errors in time reproduction tasks do not reflect a systematic temporal misperception, but rather a methodological artifact. Implications for contemporary models of time perception are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). Language: en

Need for cognition related to time perception.

Abstract: Undergraduates who scored high on need for cognition tended to underestimate a 90-sec. filled interval and their number of correct single solution anagrams tended to correlate negatively with estimated time. Subjects high in need for cognition reported the task was easy but enjoyment and prior experience were similar.