Search results for " Time perception"
showing 10 items of 19 documents
Evidence for a spatial bias in the perception of sequences of brief tones
2013
Listeners are unable to report the physical order of particular sequences of brief tones. This phenomenon of temporal dislocation depends on tone durations and frequencies. The current study empirically shows that it also depends on the spatial location of the tones. Dichotically testing a three-tone sequence showed that the central tone tends to be reported as the first or the last element when it is perceived as part of a left-to-right motion. Since the central-tone dislocation does not occur for right-to-left sequences of the same tones, this indicates that there is a spatial bias in the perception of sequences. © 2013 Acoustical Society of America.
Repetitive TMS of cerebellum interferes with millisecond time processing
2007
Time processing is important in several cognitive and motor functions, but it is still unclear how the human brain perceives time intervals of different durations. Processing of time in millisecond and second intervals may depend on different neural networks and there is now considerable evidence to suggest that these intervals are possibly measured by independent brain mechanisms. Using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), we determined that the cerebellum is essential in explicit temporal processing of millisecond time intervals. In the first experiment, subjects' performance in a time reproduction task of short (400-600 ms) and long (1,600-2,400 ms) intervals, were evalua…
The remapping of time by active tool-use
2015
Multiple, action-based space representations are each based on the extent to which action is possible toward a specific sector of space, such as near/reachable and far/unreachable. Studies on tool-use revealed how the boundaries between these representations are dynamic. Space is not only multidimensional and dynamic, but it is also known for interacting with other dimensions of magnitude, such as time. However, whether time operates on similar action-driven multiple representations and whether it can be modulated by tool-use is yet unknown. To address these issues, healthy participants performed a time bisection task in two spatial positions (near and far space) before and after an active …
Timing flickers across sensory modalities
2009
In tasks requiring a comparison of the duration of a reference and a test visual cue, the spatial position of test cue is likely to be implicitly coded, providing a form of a congruency effect or introducing a response bias according to the environmental scale or its vectorial reference. The precise mechanism generating these perceptual shifts in subjective duration is not understood, although several studies suggest that spatial attentional factors may play a critical role. Here we use a duration comparison task within and across sensory modalities to examine if temporal performance is also modulated when people are exposed to spatial distractors involving different sensory modalities. Di…
Representation of time intervals in the right posterior parietal cortex: implications for a mental time line
2009
Space and time interact with each other in the cognitive system. Recent studies indicate the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) as the neural correlate of spatial-temporal interactions. We studied whether the contribution of the PPC becomes critical in tasks requiring the performance of spatial computations on time intervals. We adopted an integrated neuropsychological and transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) approach, presenting behavioural timing tasks to both healthy subjects and right-brain-damaged patients with and without evidence of spatial neglect. rTMS of the right PPC of healthy subjects induced a lateralised bias during a task requiring setting the midpoint of a time interval. T…
Perceiving numbers alters time perception.
2008
The representation of time, space and numbers are strictly linked in the primate's cognitive system. Here we show that merely looking at number symbols biases a temporal judgment on their duration depending upon the number's magnitude. In a first experiment, a group of healthy subjects was submitted to a time estimation task, requiring to judge whether the duration of a test stimulus was longer or shorter than that of a previous reference fixed stimulus (digit 5; duration 300 ms). Test stimuli were the digits 1, 5 and 9 ranging between 250 and 350 ms. The main results showed that temporal perception was biased according to the magnitude expressed by the digit: low digits (i.e. 1) leading to…
Optokinetic stimulation affects temporal estimation in healthy humans
2007
The representation of time and space are closely linked in the cognitive system. Optokinetic stimulation modulates spatial attention in healthy subjects and patients with spatial neglect. In order to evaluate whether optokinetic stimulation could influence time perception, a group of healthy subjects performed "time-comparison" tasks of sub- and supra-second intervals before and after leftward or rightward optokinetic stimulation. Subjective time perception was biased by the direction of optokinetic stimulation. Rightward optokinetic stimulation induced an overestimation of time perception compared with baseline and leftward optokinetic stimulation. These results indicate a directional bias…
Spatial-temporal interactions in the human brain
2009
The review summarises current evidence on the cognitive mechanisms for the integration of spatial and temporal representations and of common brain structures to process the where and when of stimuli. Psychophysical experiments document the presence of spatially localised distortions of sub-second time intervals and suggest that visual events are timed by neural mechanisms that are spatially selective. On the other hand, experiments with supra-second intervals suggest that time could be represented on a mental time-line ordered from left-to-right, similar to what is reported for other ordered quantities, such as numbers. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological findings point towards the posterio…
RELATIVISTIC COMPRESSION AND EXPANSION OF EXPERIENTIAL TIME IN THE LEFT AND RIGHT SPACE
2007
Time, space and numbers are closely linked in the physical world. However, the relativistic-like effects on time perception of spatial and magnitude factors remain poorly investigated. Here we wanted to investigate whether duration judgments of digit visual stimuli are biased depending on the side of space where the stimuli are presented and on the magnitude of the stimulus itself. Different groups of healthy subjects performed duration judgment tasks on various types of visual stimuli. In the first two experiments visual stimuli were constituted by digit pairs (1 and 9), presented in the centre of the screen or in the right and left space. In a third experiment visual stimuli were constitu…
Time flies when you maximize - Maximizers and satisficers perceive time differently when making decisions
2013
Three experiments assessed whether maximizing and satisficing decision-making types were associated with differences in perception of time, as a consequence of their different cognitive workloads. Findings showed that maximizers and satisficers perceived time differently during decision-making, but not during other tasks. In particular, compared to satisficers, maximizers tended to underestimate time while choosing, independently of the number of options and the specific task requirements. Satisficers instead tended to underestimate time only when the number of options or the task requirements were more challenging. Our findings suggest that the perception of time may serve as a measure of …