Distortions Of Time Perception Research Articles

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS): prevalence and characteristics in adults with migraine

ObjectiveAlice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) is a sensory disorder characterized by a distorted somatosensory and/or visual perception. Additionally, distortion of time perception and symptoms of derealization/depersonalization may occur. AIWS is frequently associated with migraine. However, its prevalence, and clinical characteristics remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated the prevalence and features of AIWS in individuals with migraine. We hypothesized AIWS is more frequent in migraine patients with aura than in those without aura.MethodsThis was a prospective cross-sectional cohort study, conducted at a tertiary headache center. Participants with migraine filled out questionnaires, providing details on demographics, headache, AIWS characteristics and the occurrence of transient visual phenomena such as fragmented vision.ResultsOf 808 migraine patients, 133 individuals (16.5%, mean age 44.4 ± 13.3 years, 87% women) reported AIWS symptoms throughout their lives. Micro- and/or telopsia (72.9%) were most frequent, followed by micro- and/or macrosomatognosia (49.6%), and macro- and/or pelopsia (38.3%), lasting on average half an hour. AIWS symptoms occurred in association with headache in 65.1% of individuals, and 53.7% had their first AIWS episode at the age of 18 years or earlier. Migraine patients with aura were more likely to report AIWS symptoms than those without aura (19.5% vs. 14.1%, p = 0.04). Participants with AIWS reported a higher incidence of 17 out of the 22 investigated visual phenomena.ConclusionAIWS symptoms appear to be a common lifetime phenomenon in migraine patients. The correlation and clinical parallels between AIWS and migraine aura could indicate shared underlying pathomechanisms.

Time perception during the pandemic: A longitudinal study examining the role of indoor and outdoor nature exposure for remote workers

Time perception is an important psychological concept and many studies have established a link between time perception and wellbeing outcomes. Prior research and accounts of human experiences have shown that the onset of COVID-19 and related lockdowns led to distortions in time perception especially in the early months. This exploratory study was conducted longitudinally across three survey time points during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dec 2020 (N = 452), March 2021 (N = 302), and March 2022 (N = 228), focusing on remote workers in the US. This is one of the first studies looking to surface relationships between shifts in time perception in relation to shifts in nature exposure (both indoor and outdoor) during the pandemic. In this study we focus on four measures of time perception: overall perceived speed of time passage, day-to-day perceived speed of time passage, blurring of boundaries between time markers, and time perspectives. As hypothesized, our results show that during the pandemic, as time passed, people experienced a shift towards faster perceived speed of time passage, both overall and day-to-day, as well as a decrease in blurring of boundaries. We also found indoor nature exposure to be significantly associated with faster overall and day-to-day perceived speed of time passage, while outdoor exposure was marginally significantly associated with faster day-to-day perceived speed of time passage. This study is an initial step to understand how nature exposure might be a valuable way of mitigating temporal distortions, even in circumstances as adverse as a global pandemic.

Distortions in time perception during collective trauma: Insights from a national longitudinal study during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the protracted collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, lay of distorted perceptions of time (e.g., time slowing, days blurring together, uncertainty about the future) have been widespread. Known as "temporal disintegration" in psychiatric literature, these distortions are associated with negative mental health consequences. However, the prevalence and predictors of temporal disintegration are poorly understood. We examined perceptions of time passing and their associations with lifetime stress and trauma and pandemic-related secondary stress as COVID-19 spread across the United States. A probability-based national sample (N = 5,661) from the NORC AmeriSpeak online panel, which had completed a mental and physical health survey prior to the pandemic, completed two surveys online during March 18-April 18, 2020, and September 26-October 16, 2020. Distorted time perceptions and other pandemic-related experiences were assessed. Present focus, blurring weekdays and weekdays together, and uncertainty about the future were common experiences reported by over 65% of the sample 6 months into the pandemic. Half of the sample reported time speeding up or slowing down. Predictors of temporal disintegration include prepandemic mental health diagnoses, daily pandemic-related media exposure and secondary stress (e.g., school closures, lockdown), financial stress, and lifetime stress and trauma exposure. During the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, distortions in time perception were very common and associated with prepandemic mental health, lifetime stress and trauma exposure, and pandemic-related media exposure and stressors. Given that temporal disintegration is a risk factor for mental health challenges, these findings have potential implications for public mental health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Journey through a virtual tunnel: Simulated motion and its effects on the experience of time

This paper examines the relationship between time and motion perception in virtual environments. Previous work has shown that the perception of motion can affect the perception of time. We developed a virtual environment that simulates motion in a tunnel and measured its effects on the estimation of the duration of time, the speed at which perceived time passes, and the illusion of self-motion, also known as vection. When large areas of the visual field move in the same direction, vection can occur; observers often perceive this as self-motion rather than motion of the environment. To generate different levels of vection and investigate its effects on time perception, we developed an abstract procedural tunnel generator. The generator can simulate different speeds and densities of tunnel sections (visibly distinguishable sections that form the virtual tunnel), as well as the degree of embodiment of the user avatar (with or without virtual hands). We exposed participants to various tunnel simulations with different durations, speeds, and densities in a remote desktop and a virtual reality (VR) laboratory study. Time passed subjectively faster under high-speed and high-density conditions in both studies. The experience of self-motion was also stronger under high-speed and high-density conditions. Both studies revealed a significant correlation between the perceived passage of time and perceived self-motion. Subjects in the virtual reality study reported a stronger self-motion experience, a faster perceived passage of time, and shorter time estimates than subjects in the desktop study. Our results suggest that a virtual tunnel simulation can manipulate time perception in virtual reality. We will explore these results for the development of virtual reality applications for therapeutic approaches in our future work. This could be particularly useful in treating disorders like depression, autism, and schizophrenia, which are known to be associated with distortions in time perception. For example, the tunnel could be therapeutically applied by resetting patients’ time perceptions by exposing them to the tunnel under different conditions, such as increasing or decreasing perceived time.

Supplemental Material for Distortions in Time Perception During Collective Trauma: Insights From a National Longitudinal Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Supplemental Material for Distortions in Time Perception During Collective Trauma: Insights From a National Longitudinal Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Distortions in Time Perception: How the Production Rate of Linguistic Stimuli Influences the Perception of Elapsed Time

In this study we examined whether the exposure to speed-altered audio clips of speech-like stimuli can distort systematically the subjective sense of time. Participants listened to stimuli of varying durations and speeds and reproduced their durations. Results revealed that both speed and actual duration influenced the length of reproduced durations. In particular, participants reproduced durations as longer when they listened to fast compared to slow speech-like stimuli of the same actual duration. In addition, the reproduced durations of long stimuli deviated more from their veridical durations compared to those of short stimuli. Notably, a significant interaction indicated that the effect of speed was greater for stimuli of short than of long actual durations. We argue that listening to fast speech-like stimuli speeds up the pacemaker component of the internal clock, leading to overestimation of the actual duration. The implications of these findings for the theories of time perception are discussed.

Positive symptoms and time perception in schizophrenia: A meta-analysis

Positive symptoms of schizophrenia may be related to distortions in time perception. To examine this issue, we conducted a meta-analysis to determine whether positive symptoms are associated with deficits in time processing performance. MEDLINE and Web of Science were searched from January 1980 through March 2017, and all related articles and their references were scrutinized to find relevant studies. Studies were selected if they included participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and reported data from behavioral measures of interval timing (e.g. duration discrimination and temporal order judgement). The results indicated that positive symptoms of schizophrenia are related with overestimation of interval timing (i.e., acceleration of the “internal clock”), and suggest that time perception may be associated with psychosis.

Time perception deficits in impulsivity disorders: A systematic review

Abstract This systematic review aims to identify evidences of distortions in time perception (TP) in people with impulsivity disorders or other conditions having impulsivity traits, namely traumatic brain injuries, certain personality disorders, addictive behavior disorders, and pathological gambling. Studies related to TP deficits and impulsivity disorders were retrieved from multiple literature databases, through predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. From the 197 obtained documents, 47 were selected for analysis, and a final set of 15 studies was retrieved for this review. Regardless of some conflicting findings, the available results suggest that patients with orbitofrontal lesions produce and reproduce significantly less time and estimate time periods significantly longer than healthy subjects. Patients with borderline personality disorder show decreased time perception and patients with antisocial personality disorder seem to execute more premature responses during time estimation tasks. Stimulant dependent individuals also tend to overestimate the time intervals, and pathological gamblers demonstrate shorter time horizons than social gamblers. Taken together, the available data suggest that impulsive individuals tend to overestimate the passage of time and to execute more premature responses, producing and reproducing less time, but more research is necessary to increase the strength of the evidences on this issue. This systematic review updates evidences of distortions in TP in impulsivity, improving the understanding of the relations between these two variables.

Distortions of Time Perception during Critical Situations

Humans are good at estimating durations of time. The person's time perception is affected by emotion (Eiser, 2009). To allow for these predictions, an internal signal that provides the organism with a sense of time has to exist. An information-processing model of Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET) and its evolution into the neurobiologically plausible Striatal Beat-Frequency (SBF) theory, contemporaneously are the most accepted to explain this ability to perceive time (van Rijn, Gu & Meck, 2014). According to this theory initially developed by Gibbon et al, the “internal clock” is comprised of a pacemaker that emits pulses at a regular rate and a switch controls how many pulses enter into an accumulator, which stores the number of pulses during the event to be timed. With longer stimulus duration, more pulses are accumulated and consequently the higher the value of the time (Weber’s law) (Gibbon, 1977).

Time Dysperception Perspective for Acquired Brain Injury

Distortions of time perception are presented by a number of neuropsychiatric illnesses. Here we survey timing abilities in clinical populations with focal lesions in key brain structures recently implicated in human studies of timing. We also review timing performance in amnesic and traumatic brain injured patients in order to identify the nature of specific timing disorders in different brain damaged populations. We purposely analyzed the complex relationship between both cognitive and contextual factors involved in time estimation, as to characterize the correlation between timed and other cognitive behaviors in each group. We assume that interval timing is a solid construct to study cognitive dysfunctions following brain injury, as timing performance is a sensitive metric of information processing, while temporal cognition has the potential of influencing a wide range of cognitive processes. Moreover, temporal performance is a sensitive assay of damage to the underlying neural substrate after a brain insult. Further research in neurological and psychiatric patients will clarify whether time distortions are a manifestation of, or a mechanism for, cognitive and behavioral symptoms of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Time Perception Distortion in Neuropsychiatric and Neurological Disorders

There is no sense organ specifically dedicated to time perception, as there is for other senses such as hearing and vision. However, this subjective sense of time is fundamental to our conception of reality and it creates the temporal course of events in our lives. Here, we explored neurobiological relations from the clinical perspective, examining timing ability in patients with different neurological and psychiatric conditions (e.g. Parkinson's disease, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia). The neural bases of present distortions in time perception and temporal information processing still remain poorly understood. We reviewed: a) how the brain is capable of encoding time in different environments and multiple tasks, b) different models of interval timing, c) brain structures and neurotransmitters associated with time perception, d) the relationship between memory and time perception, e) neural mechanisms underlying different theories in neural and mental processes, and f) the relationship between different mental diseases and time perception. Bibliographic research was conducted based on publications over the past thirteen years written in English in the databases Scielo, Pubmed/MEDLINE, ISI Web of Knowledge. The time perceptions research are executed to evaluate time perception in mental diseases and can provide evidence for future clinical applications.

Distortions of Time Perception: The Oddball Effect

Duration perception can be affected by the oddness of stimuli. An oddball stimulus will be judged to have lasted longer than others of equal physical duration in a repeated series. It has been suggested that there are three main hypotheses to explain the subjective expansion of duration: attention hypothesis, arousal hypothesis and the neural coding efficiency hypothesis. The issues, such as variable confusion, the cross-modal effects and the time factors, are worth considering for future studies. Furthermore, no agreements are reached on the psychological and neural mechanisms of the subjective expansion of duration, and further explorations to these problems are of great significance to understand duration perception.

The time of our lives: Psychological disorders, time perception and the practice of mindfulness

Psychological disorders are associated with a wide variety of distortions of time perception. In this paper, I briefly review what is known about time perception and its disorders and suggest that the practice of mindfulness may be effective by virtue of its effect on our relationship with time.

Feeling in control: Neural correlates of experience of agency

The ability to control external events through our own actions is a fundamental aspect of human experience. Both the subjective experience of agency, and its neural correlates, remain poorly understood. Previous studies show that the angular gyrus is activated when participants explicitly judge that they lack agency. In contrast, the positive sense of agency over external events is associated with distortions of time perception. Here, we show that the perceived interval between actions and a subsequent tone is shorter than the perceived interval between a physically comparable passive movement and a tone, replicating the ‘intentional binding’ effect reported previously. We considered this as a potential implicit marker of agency, and investigated its neural basis, by using parametric analyses to identify brain areas whose activation correlated more strongly with the perceived action-tone interval in the action condition, than in the passive condition. Small volume corrections were used to test specific hypotheses about the contribution of the angular gyrus, and of the supplementary motor area (SMA), based on previous literature. We found no correlation between angular gyrus and our temporal measure of sense of agency. In contrast, we found that a lateral, caudal region within the SMA proper was more strongly associated with the perceived action-tone interval than with perception of a control interval following a passive movement. We suggest that the supplementary motor complex contributes to the subjective experience of temporal flow that accompanies goal-directed voluntary actions.

Self awareness induces distortion of time perception

Self awareness induces distortion of time perception

Individual differences in vulnerability to subjective time distortion1

Time duration is perceived to be longer when accompanied by dynamic sensory stimulation than when accompanied by static stimulation. This distortion of time perception is thought to be due to the acceleration of an internal pacemaker that has been assumed to be the main component of temporal judgments. In order to investigate whether the function of the internal pacemaker is modality dependent or independent, we examined the correlation of visual flicker and auditory flutter effects on a temporal production task. While seeing a 10-Hz visual flicker or hearing a 10-Hz auditory flutter, participants estimated a duration of 2500 ms as accurately as possible by pressing a button. The results showed a significant within-individual correlation between the time distortion due to visual flicker and that due to auditory flutter. Additionally, we found that time distortion due to auditory flutter tended to be larger in female participants than in male participants. These results suggest that the mechanisms underlying subjective time dilation are similar between vision and audition within individuals, but that they vary across individuals.

Pathophysiological distortions in time perception and timed performance

Distortions in time perception and timed performance are presented by a number of different neurological and psychiatric conditions (e.g. Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism). As a consequence, the primary focus of this review is on factors that define or produce systematic changes in the attention, clock, memory and decision stages of temporal processing as originally defined by Scalar Expectancy Theory. These findings are used to evaluate the Striatal Beat Frequency Theory, which is a neurobiological model of interval timing based upon the coincidence detection of oscillatory processes in corticostriatal circuits that can be mapped onto the stages of information processing proposed by Scalar Timing Theory.

P.3.c.052 Fatal poisonings with phenothiazine-derivatives in the forensic toxicology practice: analysis of 143 cases

A vast majority of the Mediterranean countries, including Greece, contain plants that are known for their hallucinogenic and other properties. The plant Phalaris aquatica is a centenarian moss that grows in most Mediterranean countries. It is also known by other names such as hardingrass and Phalaris tuberosa, and causes an intoxication called “canary grass intoxication.” Phalaris aquatica contains four groups of alkaloids: tryptamines, gramines, tyramines, and β-carbolines. 5-MeO-DMT is a hallucinogenic chemical compound that belongs to methylated indolealkylamines. It causes psychoactive, biochemical, and behavioral changes, agitation, visual and hearing impairments, as well as distortion of time perception. 5-MeO-DMT is demethylated by the enzyme CYP2D6 in an also-active metabolite, bufotenine. Ayahuasca means “the climate of souls” and is a hallucinogenic concoction of various powerful psychotropic plants. It contains a mixture of β-carbolines, especially harmaline and DMT. Peganum harmala belongs to the family Zygophyllaceae, and it is often referred to as “Syrian rue.” Two plants that thrive in Brazil, Anadenanthera colubrina and Anadenanthera peregrina, are also known for their hallucinogenic effects. The alkaloids atropine and scopolamine are competitive antagonists of muscarinic receptors of acetylcholine. Scopolamine is the most effective prophylactic agent used for preventing nausea of the travelers, whereas atropine is used in anesthesia because of its effect on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. The plant Mandragora officinarum belongs to the family Solanaceae and is widely distributed in the Mediterranean region (including Greece). It was used for soothing, analgesic, anesthetic and aphrodisiac purposes, but also for its hallucinogenic properties as a medication. The Atropa belladonna is classified in the family Solanaceae and grows in uncultivated barren lands. It is endemic in areas of the Mediterranean countries (including Greece). The plant is also known as “deadly nightshade.” All parts of the plant contain the alkaloids atropine, hyoscine, and scopolamine, making it poisonous and hallucinogenic. Hyoscyamus niger belongs to the family Solanaceae. It is also known as “henbane,” and the inflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic, and antiparkinsonian properties of the plant are under investigation. Datura is a genre of plants that belongs to the family Solanaceae. The most important species of Datura are Datura innoxia, Datura metel, Datura discolor, and Datura stramonium, also known as “Jimson weed” and “zombie’s cucumber.”

Synthetic Cannabinoids

Cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana, is a plant containing chemical compounds capable of causing physiologic and psychological effects in humans. These effects are well documented and include tachycardia, vasodilation, hypertension, bronchodilation, and decreased intraocular pressure. The psychological effects include changes in perception of external stimuli, difficulty concentrating, distortions of time perception, and memory failure. Marijuana contains cannabinoids, which are responsible for the psychoactive effects and have made marijuana a popular drug of abuse.

Visually-evoked but context-dependent distortions in time perception

Visually-evoked but context-dependent distortions in time perception