Time Reproduction Task Research Articles

Effects of short time -30° head-down tilt on time perception.

Exposure to microgravity induces abnormal experiences that may affect the perception of time. Head-down tilts (HDTs) are commonly used to investigate the effects of weightlessness. A -30° HDT is considered an appropriate model to simulate the acute phase of microgravity exposure. Temporal performance in a time reproduction task was assessed before and after 30 min of -30° HDT, using 800, 1,000, and 2,000 ms as standard intervals. Absolute error (AE), relative error (ratio), and coefficient of variation (CV) were calculated to quantify performance. Compared to baseline measures obtained prior to HDT, both the mean AE and the ratio were significantly increased after 30 min of -30° HDT at the 800 ms interval. A similar trend was observed at the 1,000 ms interval, but no significant effect was found at the 2,000 ms interval. No significant differences were observed in the CV before and after -30° HDT. Acute exposure to microgravity, simulated by the -30° HDT condition, primarily affects duration perception at sub-second intervals.

Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence of Time Dilation Induced by Click Train in a Temporal Reproduction Task

Background: The temporal reproduction paradigm is extensively used to study human time perception. Despite extensive behavioral and physiological research, the effect of click trains on different supra-second interval timings in the time reproduction task remains unclear. Event-related potentials (ERPs), such as contingent negative variation (CNV), might provide further insight into the underlying processes occurring at various timing stages. Methods: In this study, constant and click trains stimuli were presented to the 33 participants in a time reproduction task. During the encoding phase, participants in each condition were given different click train interval timings (1400, 1600, 1800, and 2000 ms). In this original research, we examined the influence of click trains on time reproduction performance using behavioral and electrophysiological methods. Results: Findings revealed time dilation during the presentation of click trains in behavioral patterns (P-value = 0.001). Furthermore, electroencephalography (EEG) data revealed a distinct CNV during the encoding and reproduction of interval timings. In the reproduction phase, CNV amplitudes were more negative in the click trains condition compared with the constant auditory stimulation condition (P-value = 0.027). Statistically significant differences were also observed in the CNV amplitudes at various interval timings during the encoding phase, but the amplitude did not increase linearly. Conclusions: Intriguingly, according to the proposed neural mechanism studies, the brain structures affected by the click train corresponded to the electrodes that CNV was observed in the time reproduction task. These findings contribute to our understanding of the striatal-beat frequency (SBF) timing model.

Life in the fast lane: the role of temporal processing in risk-taking behaviors

An existing theoretical framework proposes that aberrant temporal processing and a fast internal clock, denoted by overestimation and under-reproduction of time, increases the likelihood of engagement in risky behaviors (ERB). The primary aim of this project was to improve our understanding of the relationship between temporal processing and ERB in college students. The present study used the Wittmann and Paulus (2008) theoretical framework to examine the associations between temporal processing and ERB in college students. College student participants (N = 215) completed self-report measures of ERB, delay aversion, inhibitory control, ADHD symptoms and objective cognitive time estimation and time reproduction tasks. Time estimation accuracy was significantly associated with lower engagement in sexual risk behaviors (OR = .988; 95% CI: .979, .996; p = .006) and aggressive behaviors (OR = .989; 95% CI: .980, .998; p = .018). Time reproduction was not significantly associated with ERB. The present study established preliminary support for the associations between aberrant temporal processing, namely aberrant time estimation, and ERB among college students.

Effect of Different Body Postures on Prospective Time Perception

Aim: The current study employed the Time Reproduction task within the Prospective Time Perception paradigm. Previous research has indicated that posture has a consequential influence on time perception. To expand upon these observations, we explored the impact of five distinct postures on participants' time perception.
 Methods: During each 8- to 10-minute session, 19 healthy young adults were presented with 50 audio stimuli, which took the form of 'beep' sounds and lasted 0.5, 1, 3, 4, and 6 seconds, in a random order. Participants were instructed to reproduce the duration of the stimuli in five different postures in the following order: sitting, standing, lying supine at 180 degrees, lying head down at -15 degrees (HDT), and lying prone at 180 degrees.
 Results: In all postures, the shorter durations were perceived as longer than they are, and the relatively longer durations were perceived as shorter than they are. Statistically significant differences were found between the postures for all stimuli durations except for 3000 ms (repeated-measures ANOVA, significance level at p < 0.05). The physically and mentally healthy participants perceived time more slowly when they adapted a lying posture (supine, prone, and -15 degrees HDT) without cognitive load.
 Conclusion: The current investigation is the first to examine the influence of these postures (sitting, standing, and the three different lying postures) on the perception of time, with the lying postures, but especially the HDT and prone positions, causing a significant dilation of the perception of time.

Me, myself and you: How self-consciousness influences time perception

Several investigations have shown that the processing of self-relevant information differs from processing objective information. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of social stimuli on subjective time processing. Here, social stimuli are images of an unknown male and female person and an image of participants’ self. Forty university students were tested with a time reproduction task in which they were asked to reproduce the duration of the stimulus previously presented. Images of others or themselves were used to mark the temporal intervals. Participants also performed questionnaires to evaluate the level of anxiety and depression as well as self-consciousness. A generalised linear mixed-effects model approach was adopted. Results showed that male participants with higher Private Self-Consciousness scores showed higher time perception accuracy than females. Also, female participants reported higher scores for the Public Self-Consciousness subscale than male participants. The findings are discussed in terms of social context models of how attention is solicited and arousal is generated by social stimuli, highlighting the effect of social context on subjective perception of time.

Time bisection and reproduction: Evidence for a slowdown of the internal clock in right brain damaged patients

Previous studies show that the right hemisphere is involved in time processing, and that damage to the right hemisphere is associated with a tendency to perceive time intervals as shorter than they are, and to reproduce time intervals as longer than they are. Whether time processing deficits following right hemisphere damage are related and what is their neurocognitive basis is unclear. In this study, right brain damaged (RBD) patients, left brain damaged (LBD) patients, and healthy controls underwent a time bisection task and a time reproduction task involving time intervals varying between each other by milliseconds (short durations) or seconds (long durations). The results show that in the time bisection task RBD patients underestimated time intervals compared to LBD patients and healthy controls, while they reproduced time intervals as longer than they are. Time underestimation and over-reproduction in RBD patients applied to short but not long time intervals, and were correlated. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) showed that time underestimation was associated with lesions to a right cortico-subcortical network involving the insula and inferior frontal gyrus. A small portion of this network was also associated with time over-reproduction. Our findings are consistent with a slowdown of an ‘internal clock’ timing mechanism following right brain damage, which likely underlies both the underestimation and the over-reproduction of time intervals, and their (overlapping) neural bases.

The effect of visually filled reproductions on the reproduced durations of auditory intervals.

The present study examined how the perception of time is affected by the presence of a visual stimulus during the reproduction phase of an online time reproduction task. Participants were instructed to reproduce the durations of speed-altered speech snippets with either a picture or a blank screen presented during the reproduction phase. Results showed that fast speeches were reproduced as longer than slow ones, while the reproduced durations of short speeches were closer to the actual durations than were the long speeches. In addition, longer reproduced durations were observed in trials with a picture than in trials with a blank screen. These results provide clear evidence that postencoding information can influence the reproduction of previously encoded temporal intervals and are discussed in the context of attention allocation and its possible influence on an internal clock mechanism. Also, the study provides evidence that online testing is reliable for assessing biases in time perception, at least with time reproduction tasks.

Sounding and imagining sounds improve visual time perception: Application of the modality effect of time perception.

This study examines whether the modality effect can be used to improve visual time perception. In Experiment 1, we used a time-reproduction task to explore the accuracy (i.e., deviation of reproduced time from veridical time) and precision (i.e., variability of reproduced time) of time perception under auditory, visual, or audiovisual conditions. Results confirmed the existence of a modality effect. Experiments 2a and 2b and Experiment 3 examined whether adding auditory stimuli improves visual time perception. In Experiments 2a and 2b, participants were required to sound when the visual stimuli appeared. Results showed that the addition of sound to visual stimuli perception is associated with higher time perception accuracy than viewing visual stimuli alone. Given that sounding is not always applicable, we conducted Experiment 3, with participants asked to imagine sounds instead of sounding. Results showed that imaginary sounds improved accuracy. However, in Experiments 2a, 2b, and 3, neither sounding nor imagining sounds changed the precision of time perception. The findings of this study indicate that adding auditory stimuli reliably improves the accuracy of visual-time perception, irrespective of whether the sound is real or imagined.

Why the clock ticks differently in Parkinson's disease: Insights from motor imagery and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging

In Parkinson's disease (PD), an impaired perception of suprasecond time intervals has been reported. From a neurobiological perspective, dopamine is thought to be an important mediator of timing. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether timing deficits in PD occur mainly in the motor context and are associated with corresponding striatocortical loops. This study attempted to fill this gap by investigating time reproduction in the context of a motor imagery task, and its neurobiological correlates in resting-state networks of basal ganglia substructures in PD.Nineteen PD patients and 10 healthy controls therefore underwent two time reproduction tasks. In a motor imagery task, subjects were asked to walk down a corridor for 10 s and reproduce the time spent walking during motor imagery afterwards. In an auditory task, the subjects had to reproduce an acoustically presented time interval of 10 s. Subsequently, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed and voxel-wise regressions were conducted between striatal functional connectivity and performance in the individual task at group level and compared between groups.Patients significantly misjudged the time interval in the motor imagery task and an auditory task in comparison to controls. Seed-to-voxel functional connectivity analysis of basal ganglia substructures revealed a significant association between striatocortical connectivity and motor imagery performance. PD patients showed a different pattern of associated striatocortical connections as indicated by significantly different regression slopes for connections of the right putamen and left caudate nucleus.In accordance with previous findings, our data confirm an impaired time reproduction of suprasecond time intervals in PD patients. Our data imply that deficits in time reproduction tasks are not specific to motor context but reflect a general time reproduction deficit. According to our findings, impaired performance in context of motor imagery is accompanied by a different configuration of striatocortical resting-state networks responsible for timing.

The Functional Brain Network of Subcortical and Cortical Regions Underlying Time Estimation: An Functional MRI Study

Time estimation is fundamental for human survival. There have been increasing studies suggesting that distributed brain regions, such as the basal ganglia, cerebellum and the parietal cortex, may contribute to a dedicated neural mechanism of time estimation. However, evidence on the specific function of the subcortical and cortical brain regions and the interplay of them is scare. In this work, we explored how the subcortical and cortical networks function in time estimation during a time reproduction task using functional MRI (fMRI). Thirty healthy participants performed the time reproduction task in both auditory and visual modalities. Results showed that time estimation in visual and auditory modality recruited a subcortical-cortical brain network including the left caudate, left cerebellum, and right precuneus. Besides, the superior temporal gyrus (STG) was found essential in the difference between time estimation in visual and auditory modality. Using psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis, we observed an increase in the connection between left caudate and left precuneus using the left caudate as the seed region in temporal reproduction task than control task. This suggested that the left caudate is the key region connecting and transmitting information to other brain regions in the dedicated brain network of time estimation.

Role of the subthalamic nucleus in perceiving and estimating the passage of time

Sense of time (temporal sense) is believed to be processed by various brain regions in a complex manner, among which the basal ganglia, including the striatum and subthalamic nucleus (STN), play central roles. However, the precise mechanism for processing sense of time has not been clarified. To examine the role of the STN in temporal processing of the sense of time by directly manipulating STN function by switching a deep brain stimulation (DBS) device On/Off in 28 patients with Parkinson's disease undergoing STN-DBS therapy. The test session was performed approximately 20 min after switching the DBS device from On to Off or from Off to On. Temporal sense processing was assessed in three different tasks (time reproduction, time production, and bisection). In the three temporal cognitive tasks, switching STN-DBS to Off caused shorter durations to be produced compared with the switching to the On condition in the time production task. In contrast, no effect of STN-DBS was observed in the time bisection or time reproduction tasks. These findings suggest that the STN is involved in the representation process of time duration and that the role of the STN in the sense of time may be limited to the exteriorization of memories formed by experience.

Evidence of abnormal scalar timing property in alexithymia.

Evidence suggests that incidental modulation of affective states affects the ability to keep track of time. Alexithymia represents an ideal condition to further address the emotion-time processing link, as it refers to a trait characterized by a deficit of affective processing. 31 healthy participants completed an online version of the TAS-20 scale, which measures alexithymia, and a time reproduction task of visual stimuli related to positive (i.e., happiness) and negative (i.e., anger) facial expressions. Results documented a positive correlation between TAS-20 score and the variability in reproducing sub-second durations of the anger expression stimuli We also found an overestimation of sub-second durations of non-affective expressions in borderline/alexithymic participants. Finally, in line with the literature, we confirmed the overall tendency to overestimate the duration of anger expression stimuli. These findings, which can be interpreted in terms of abnormal scalar timing property in alexithymia, expand previous investigations linking this personality trait with abnormal processing of negative emotions. The evidence that alexithymia predicts the reproduction variability of sub-second durations of negative affective stimuli corroborates previous neuroimaging studies documenting cerebellar deficits in these individuals.

The Effect of Electrical-Stimulation-Induced Emotion on Time Perception: A Time-Reproduction Task.

Duration cognition refers to an individual's cognition for the duration of a given stimulus. Previous studies have explored the effect of emotions on duration perception; however, the results remain controversial. To explore the characteristics of college students' time perception under electrical stimulation, this study used a time-reproduction task and a within-subject design with electrical-stimulation conditions and target duration as independent variables. Additionally, this study used the average temporal reproduction and the reproduction coefficient of variation as dependent variables; the subjective arousal degree, value, and electrical activity under electric stimulation were recorded simultaneously. The results indicated a significant main effect of electrical stimulation. Compared to non-electrical stimulation, the average temporal reproduction of participants under electrical stimulation was significantly shorter. Additionally, the interaction between electrical stimulation and target duration was significant. Furthermore, with the increase in the target duration, the shortening degree of the average temporal reproduction under the electrical stimulation increased significantly. Additionally, the participants' subjective arousal with electrical stimulation was higher than that without an electrical shock, and the valence with electrical stimulation was lower than that without electrical stimulation. These results suggest that the emotions induced by electrical stimulation increase the internal-clock speed, which leads to the relative overestimation of time perception.

Dissociable Roles of Theta and Alpha in Sub-Second and Supra-Second Time Reproduction: An Investigation of their Links to Depression and Anxiety

Abstract A growing collection of observations has demonstrated the presence of multiple neural oscillations participating in human temporal cognition and psychiatric pathologies such as depression and anxiety. However, there remains a gap in the literature regarding the specific roles of these neural oscillations during interval timing, and how these oscillatory activities might vary with the different levels of mental health. The current study examined the participation of the frontal midline theta and occipital alpha oscillations, both of which are prevalent cortical oscillatory markers frequently reported in working memory and time perception paradigms. Participants performed a time reproduction task in the sub- (400, 600, 800 ms) and supra-second timescales (1600, 1800, 2000 ms) while undergoing scalp EEG recordings. Anxiety and depression levels were measured via self-report mental health inventories. Time–frequency analysis of scalp EEG revealed that both frontal midline and occipital alpha oscillations were engaged during the encoding of the durations. Furthermore, we observed that the correlational relationship between frontal midline theta power and the reproduction performance in the sub-second range was modulated by state anxiety. In contrast, the correlational relationship between occipital alpha and the reproduction performance of supra-second intervals was modulated by depression and trait anxiety. The results offer insights on how alpha and theta oscillations differentially play a role in interval timing and how mental health further differentially relates these neural oscillations to sub- and supra-second timescales.

A virtual reality time reproduction task for rodents.

Estimates of the duration of time intervals and other magnitudes exhibit characteristic biases that likely result from error minimization strategies. To investigate such phenomena, magnitude reproduction tasks are used with humans and other primates. However, such behavioral tasks do not exist for rodents, one of the most important animal orders for neuroscience. We, therefore, developed a time reproduction task that can be used with rodents. It involves an animal reproducing the duration of a timed visual stimulus by walking along a corridor. The task was implemented in virtual reality, which allowed us to ensure that the animals were actually estimating time. The hallway did not contain prominent spatial cues and movement could be de-correlated from optic flow, such that the animals could not learn a mapping between stimulus duration and covered distance. We tested the reproduction of durations of several seconds in three different stimulus ranges. The gerbils reproduced the durations with a precision similar to experiments on humans. Their time reproductions also exhibited the characteristic biases of magnitude estimation experiments. These results demonstrate that our behavioral paradigm provides a means to study time reproduction in rodents.

The influence of different musical modes and tempi on time perception

Studies involving the interaction between musical mode and tempo on time perception have been carried out through comparisons between a single major mode and a single minor mode, presented in different tempi. However, classifying the modes only into major and minor has not been considered sufficient. The purpose of this study was to verify the influence of the musical mode and tempo interaction on time perception analyzing the effect of different modes performed in the slow, moderate and fast tempi. Fifty undergraduate students of both sexes individually listened to 12 musical excerpts (4 modes – Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian and Aeolian – and 3 tempi – 72 bpm, 114 bpm, and 184 bpm), one excerpt at a time. After each excerpt, the participants performed a time-reproduction task, in which they had to press a button (beginning of the task), recal the duration of each excerpt and press a button again (end of the task). Results showed no interaction between mode and tempi and no differences between musical modes, regardless of tempo. However, regardless of the mode, excerpts in slow tempo was judged shorter than in moderate and fast tempi, respectively, and excerpts in moderate tempo was judged shorter than excerpts in fast tempo. These results can contribute to understanding the psychological processes of attention, memory and expectancy related to the perception of time in music listening situations.

New interdependence feature of EEG signals as a biomarker of timing deficits evaluated in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder detection

Similarity quantification is an important field of study in electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain activity detection, in which the goal is to compute interdependence between certain cortical areas from inter-hemispheric or intra-hemispheric channel pairs. This study aims to propose a new interdependence EEG feature, namely Dynamic frequency warpping(DFW) based on dynamic analysis of frequency fluctuations as a hybrid feature extraction step. A new EEG classifier based on sparse coding has been developed for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) detection. It has been tested using EEG recordings of 14 ADHD children and 19 healthy controls during resting state and a time-reproduction task. The capability of the proposed method with an accuracy rate of 99.17% has been shown. Use of the DFW extracted from frontal channel pairs or beta frequency band not only improves the performance but also reduces the computational complexity due to the need to a subgroup of channels or a subband.

I can’t wait! An investigation into time processing in cocaine use disorder

IntroductionAlmost all definitions of impulsivity include the notion of distorted time perception such as impaired awareness of the future or premature responses. Preclinical evidence suggests that stimulant drugs speed up the internal clock, making time pass faster than it actually is. However, stimulant-addicted humans, who are drug-abstinent seem to over-estimate long time intervals.ObjectivesThe present study aims to investigate time processing in actively using patients with cocaine use disorder (CUD). We hypothesise that active cocaine use will be associated with an under-estimation of long time intervals.MethodsWe recruited 48 men with a chronic history of cocaine use, meeting the DSM-5 criteria for CUD, and 42 healthy men without a history of substance use disorders. All participants completed a time reproduction task in which they were presented four times with six different time durations and were subsequently asked to reproduce them by pressing the space bar for the same time duration of the target interval they had just seen. Participants also completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11).ResultsOverall precision in time reproduction was significantly reduced in CUD patients (F6,81=3.97,p=0.002), which was particularly evident for longer time delays. CUD patients’ estimated-to-target-duration ratios were marginally shorter for the 11000ms (F1,86=3.1,p=0.084) and significantly shorter for the 18000ms and 24000ms time intervals (both p<0.05). Time reproduction performance correlated with self-reported attentional impulsivity on the BIS-11 in both CUD patients and healthy controls (all p<0.05).ConclusionsConsistent with preclinical work, the inner clock of humans with regular cocaine use seems to be accelerated.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Training the brain to time: the effect of neurofeedback of SMR–Beta1 rhythm on time perception in healthy adults

The timing ability plays an important role in everyday activities and is influenced by several factors such as the attention and arousal levels of the individuals. The effects of these factors on time perception have been interpreted through psychological models of time, including Attentional Gate Model (AGM). On the other hand, research has indicated that neurofeedback (NFB) training improves attention and increases arousal levels in the clinical and healthy population. Regarding the link between attentional processing and arousal levels and NFB and their relation to time perception, this study is a pilot demonstration of the influence of SMR-Beta1 (12-18Hz) NFB training on time production and reproduction performance in healthy adults. To this end, 12 (9 female and 3 males; M = 26.3, SD = 3.8) and 12 participants (7 female and 5 males; M = 26.9, SD = 3.1) were randomly assigned into the experimental (with SMR-Beta1 NFB) and control groups (without any NFB training), respectively. The experimental group underwent intensive 10 sessions (3days a week) of the 12-18Hz up-training. Time production and reproduction performance were assessed pre and post NFB training for all participants. Three-way mixed ANOVA was carried out on T-corrected scores of reproduction and production tasks. Correlation analysis was also performed between SMR-Beta1 and time perception. While NFB training significantly influenced time production (P < 0.01), no such effect was observed for the time reproduction task. The results of the study are finally discussed within the frameworks of AGM, dual-process and cognitive aspects of time perception. Overall, our results contribute to disentangling the underlying mechanisms of temporal performance in healthy individuals.

Partially Separable Aspects of Spatial and Temporal Estimations in Virtual Navigation as Revealed by Adaptation.

Recent studies claim that estimating the magnitude of the spatial and temporal aspects of one's self-motion shows similar characteristics, suggesting shared processing mechanisms between these two dimensions. While the estimation of other magnitude dimensions, such as size, number, and duration, exhibits negative aftereffects after prolonged exposure to the stimulus, it remains to be elucidated whether this could occur similarly in the estimation of the distance travelled and time elapsed during one's self-motion. We sought to fill this gap by examining the effects of adaptation on distance and time estimation using a virtual navigation task. We found that a negative aftereffect occurred in the distance reproduction task after repeated exposure to self-motion with a fixed travel distance. No such aftereffect occurred in the time reproduction task after repeated exposure to self-motion with a fixed elapsed time. Further, the aftereffect in distance reproduction occurred only when the distance of the adapting stimulus was fixed, suggesting that it did not reflect adaptation to time, which varied with distance. The estimation of spatial and temporal aspects of self-motion is thus processed by partially separable mechanisms, with the distance estimation being similar to the estimation of other magnitude dimensions.