The effect of mild depression on time discrimination

Depressed mood states affect subjective perceptions of time but it is not clear whether this is due to changes in the underlying timing mechanisms, such as the speed of the internal clock. In order to study depression effects on time perception, two experiments using time discrimination methods with short (<300?ms) and long (>1,000?ms) durations were conducted. Student participants who were categorized as mildly depressed by their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory were less able than controls to discriminate between two longer durations but were equally able to discriminate shorter intervals. The results suggest that mildly depressed or dysphoric moods do not affect pacemaker speed. It is more likely that depression affects the ability to maintain attention to elapsing duration.     

The effect of mild depression on time discrimination

Depressed mood states affect subjective perceptions of time but it is not clear whether this is due to changes in the underlying timing mechanisms, such as the speed of the internal clock. In order to study depression effects on time perception, two experiments using time discrimination methods with short (<300 ms) and long (>1,000 ms) durations were conducted. Student participants who were categorized as mildly depressed by their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory were less able than controls to discriminate between two longer durations but were equally able to discriminate shorter intervals. The results suggest that mildly depressed or dysphoric moods do not affect pacemaker speed. It is more likely that depression affects the ability to maintain attention to elapsing duration.     

疼痛表情对秒下及秒上时距知觉的影响

采用二分法和泛化法范式,在秒下及秒上呈现时距探究疼痛表情对时距知觉的影响。结果发现,使用二分法,疼痛表情在秒上秒下都显著延长了个体的主观时距,但使用泛化法,疼痛表情仅在秒上产生影响。根据时间分段综合模型和范式特点,该实验结果反映疼痛表情对时距知觉的影响在秒上秒下的作用机制可能不同,在秒下主要是通过唤醒影响,在秒上则可能由唤醒和注意共同调节。     

Emotional modulation of attention affects time perception: Evidence from event-related potentials

Emotional effects on human time perception are generally attributed to arousal speeding up or slowing down the internal clock. The aim of the present study is to investigate the less frequently considered role of attention as an alternative mediator of these effects with the help of event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants produced short intervals (0.9, 1.5, 2.7, and 3.3 s) while viewing high arousal images with pleasant and unpleasant contents in comparison to neutral images. Behavioral results revealed that durations were overproduced for the 0.9 s interval whereas, for 2.7 and 3.3 s intervals, underproduction was observed. The effect of affective valence was present for the shorter durations and decreased as the target intervals became longer. More specifically, the durations for unpleasant images were less overproduced in the 0.9 s intervals, and for the 1.5 s trials, durations for unpleasant images were slightly underproduced, compared to pleasant images, which were overproduced. The analysis of different ERP components suggests possible attention processes related to the timing of affective images in addition to changes in pacemaker speed. Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) was larger for positive than for negative images, indicating valence-specific differences in activation of early attention mechanisms. Within the early P1 and the Late Positive Potential (LPP) components, both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli exhibited equal affective modulation. Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) remained independent of both timing performance and affective modulation. This pattern suggests that both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli enhanced arousal and captured attention, but the latter effect was more pronounced for pleasant stimuli. The valence-specificity of affective attention revealed by ERPs combined with behavioral timing results suggests that attention processes indeed contribute to emotion-induced temporal distortions, especially for longer target intervals.     

时距知觉的扭曲:新异刺激效应

时距知觉会受到刺激新异性的影响,新异刺激的呈现时间往往被认为长于等时距重复出现的标准刺激的呈现时间.已有研究在解释这种主观的时距扩张现象时主要涉及三种假设:注意假设、唤醒假设和神经编码效能假设.研究中的变量混淆问题、跨通道效应和时间因素是今后研究中值得思考的几个问题.对于新异刺激效应产生的心理和神经机制,研究者们还存在着较大分歧.进一步探讨其心理和神经机制对理解时距知觉具有重要意义.     

The effects of music on time perception and performance of a driving game

Cassidy, G.G. & MacDonald, R.A.R. (2010). The effects of music on time perception and performance of a driving game. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 51, 455–464. There is an established and growing body of evidence highlighting that music can influence behavior across a range of diverse domains ( Miell, MacDonald, & Hargreaves 2005 ). One area of interest is the monitoring of “internal timing mechanisms”, with features such as tempo, liking, perceived affective nature and everyday listening contexts implicated as important ( North & Hargreaves, 2008 ). The current study addresses these issues by comparing the effects of self‐selected and experimenter‐selected music (fast and slow) on actual and perceived performance of a driving game activity. Seventy participants completed three laps of a driving game in seven sound conditions: (1) silence; (2) car sounds; (3) car sounds with self‐selected music, and car sounds with experimenter‐selected music; (4) high‐arousal (70 bpm); (5) high‐arousal (130 bpm); (6) low‐arousal (70 bpm); and (7) low‐arousal (130 bpm) music. Six performance measures (time, accuracy, speed, and retrospective perception of these), and four experience measures (perceived distraction, liking, appropriateness and enjoyment) were taken. Exposure to self‐selected music resulted in overestimation of elapsed time and inaccuracy, while benefiting accuracy and experience. In contrast, exposure to experimenter‐selected music resulted in poorest performance and experience. Increasing the tempo of experimenter‐selected music resulted in faster performance and increased inaccuracy for high‐arousal music, but did not impact experience. It is suggested that personal meaning and subjective associations connected to self‐selected music promoted increased engagement with the activity, overriding detrimental effects attributed to unfamiliar, less liked and less appropriate experimenter‐selected music.     

Reasoning and concurrent timing: a study of the mechanisms underlying the effect of emotion on reasoning

Negative emotions typically have an adverse effect on reasoning, especially analytic or logical reasoning. This effect can be explained using an attentional framework in which emotion detracts limited-capacity cognitive resources which are required for reasoning. Another possibility is that the effect of emotion on reasoning is mediated by arousal, as previous research has shown that physiological arousal can be associated with decreased reasoning performance. In this research, we used a dual-task paradigm combining a syllogistic reasoning task and a time production task. Prospective timing allows to disentangle the effects of attention and arousal: time productions should lengthen if emotion takes up cognitive resources that are therefore not available for timing, whereas time productions should shorten if emotional reasoning results from increased arousal. Results from two experiments confirm the adverse impact of emotion on logical reasoning performance. Reasoning about emotional contents led to lengthened time productions, which suggests that the capture of limited cognitive resources is the main factor accounting for the adverse effect of emotion on reasoning and not arousal.     

Fast breathing facilitates reaction time and movement time of a memory-guided force pulse

Slow controlled breathing can be beneficial for performance of continuous and serial motor tasks. However, how controlled breathing influences discrete motor task performance remains unclear. We sought to determine the impact of paced breathing frequency on measures of movement initiation (reaction time: RT), accuracy (absolute endpoint error: AE; constant error: CE), and variability (trial-to-trial variability: V), in a goal-directed discrete motor task. We hypothesized slow breathing would be accompanied by faster RT, reduced AE and CE, and less V compared to faster breathing rates. Participants (N = 47) performed a memory-guided force pulse pinch task targeted at 10% of their maximum voluntary contraction while breathing at metronome-paced slow, normal, and fast frequencies. During each breathing condition, heart rate variability (HRV) as indexed by the standard deviation of ‘NN’ intervals (SDNN) was measured to ensure objective manipulation check of participants breathing at their set pace. Following each breathing condition, participants provided subjective ratings using the Affect Grid and Visual Analog Scales for arousal, hindrance, and dyspnea. Manipulation check results indicated participants correctly breathed at metronome paces, as indexed by increased HRV for slow breathing and decreased HRV for fast breathing. Results indicated that fast breathing reduced reaction time and movement time, and increased ratings of arousal, hindrance, and dyspnea. In contrast, slow breathing increased reaction time, and levels of hindrance and dyspnea were similar to normal breathing. Breathing frequency did not differentially impact accuracy or variability across conditions. Findings provide evidence that breathing frequency affects fundamental movement parameters, potentially mediated by factors other than arousal.     

The role of physiological arousal in time perception: psychophysiological evidence from an emotion regulation paradigm

Time perception, crucial for adaptive behavior, has been shown to be altered by emotion. An arousal-dependent mechanism is proposed to account for such an effect. Yet, physiological measure of arousal related with emotional timing is still lacking. We addressed this question using skin conductance response (SCR) in an emotion regulation paradigm. Nineteen participants estimated durations of neutral and negative sounds by comparing them to a previously memorized duration. Instructions were given to attend either to temporal or to emotional stimulus features. Attending to emotion with negative sounds generated longer subjective duration and greater physiological arousal than attending to time. However, a shared-attention condition showed discrepancy between behavioral and physiological results. Supporting the idea of a link between autonomic arousal and subjective duration, our results however suggest that this relation is not as direct as was expected. Results are discussed within recent model linking time perception, emotion and awareness.     

Does Time Fly 20 m above the Ground? Exploring the Role of Affective Response on Time Perception in a High‐risk Sport

A field study (n = 61) was performed in a Via Ferrata to explore how affective response influences time perception during an arousing activity in a real‐life setting (passing through a 69‐m‐long, 20‐m‐high, two‐rope bridge). Two questionnaires were administered (i) at the end point of the bridge (high‐arousing condition) and (ii) close to the end of the Via Ferrata (low‐arousing condition). Participants assessed their affect (arousal, valence, and dominance) and provided retrospective (duration estimation and passage of time judgments) and prospective (to produce a subjective minute using a stopwatch) temporal judgments. The results showed that the actual performance mediated the relationship between affect and retrospective time perception measures, with the exception of dominance, which directly predicted passage of time judgments. Regarding prospective measures, an increase in arousal was parallel to shorter temporal productions. The results are discussed in terms of the emotional factors underlying time perception in ecological contexts.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of affective factors on time perception

Several studies have suggested that both affective valence and arousal affect the perception of time. However, in previous experiments, the two affective dimensions have not been systematically controlled. In this study, standardized photographic slides rated for emotional valence and arousal were projected to two groups of subjects for 2, 4, and 6 sec. One group of subjects estimated the projection duration on an analog scale, whereas the second group of subjects reproduced the intervals by pushing a button. Heart rate and skin conductance responses were also recorded during stimulus presentation as indices of attention and arousal. Time estimation results showed neither a main effect of valence nor a main effect of arousal. A highly significant valence × arousal interaction affected duration judgments. For low-arousal stimuli, the duration of negative slides was judged relatively shorter than the duration of positive slides. For high-arousal stimuli, the duration of negative slides was judged longer than the duration of positive slides. The same interaction pattern was observed across judgment modalities. These results are interpreted in terms of a model of action tendency, in which the level of arousal controls two different motivational mechanisms, one emotional and the other attentional.     

疼痛背景下时距知觉的变化

时距知觉指对数百毫秒到数个小时时长的知觉, 是日常生活中许多活动的基础。时距知觉受到相当多因素的影响, 如唤醒、注意、动机等。疼痛是一种多维度的心理及生理现象, 包含有感觉分辨、情绪动机、认知评价三个成分。近期研究证明时距知觉会在疼痛背景下发生改变。疼痛背景下时距知觉的相关研究主要涉及三个方面：(1)健康被试对疼痛面孔的时距知觉; (2)实验室诱发疼痛对健康被试时距知觉的影响; (3)临床疼痛患者的时距知觉变化。探索疼痛背景下时距知觉的变化, 可以为理解疼痛的发生发展机制以及时间知觉的机制提供一个新视角。     

Executive function during and after acute moderate aerobic exercise in adolescents

ObjectivesIn two experiments, we investigated the effects of acute moderate-intensity exercise on aspects of executive function in adolescents.DesignAn experimental design was used.MethodsFifty-five Japanese adolescents (Experiment 1: N = 28; Experiment 2: N = 27) performed a modified flanker task and a modified n-back task to assess inhibitory control and working memory before, during, and after walking on a treadmill at moderate intensity (Experiment 1: 60% maximal heart rate; Experiment 2: 70% maximal heart rate). In a separate session, the same testing sequence was administered while participants sat in a chair.ResultThe results revealed that reaction time for working memory increased during exercise in both experiments, while response accuracy decreased during exercise only at 70% maximal heart rate. Moderate intensity exercise had no substantial effect on inhibition control. Following cessation of the exercise, no effects were observed for either executive function assessment.ConclusionThese results indicate that moderate intensity exercise selectively affects executive function in adolescents. Further, during physical activity, adolescents maintain inhibitory control, but their working memory declines. Further research is required to reveal the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon and to expand beyond the laboratory setting to the areas of sports and physical activities of daily living.     

The effect of modification of expressive displays on vicarious emotional arousal

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that modulation of the facial expressive response is accompanied by changes in autonomic arousal and subjective response to painful stimuli. The present study asked whether facial self-regulation may also bring about changes in covert vicarious emotional experience. Three groups of subjects were exposed to a videotaped model displaying intermittent pain to shock in a differential vicarious autonomic conditioning paradigm. Subjects in the inhibit and amplify groups were asked, respectively, (a) to inhibit their facial muscles or (b) to pose a facial response of pain when the model was shocked. It was predicted that the inhibit group would show less autonomic arousal to the model's expressive display (empathy) and less conditioning (as measured by skin conductance and heart rate change), and the amplify group more empathy and conditioning, than a third group who was given no facial instruction. In fact, the amplify group showed more skin conductance arousal, heart rate acceleration, and activity in response to the model's expressive display of pain than did the other two groups (which were not different from each other), but no more autonomic or facial conditioning. The overall pattern of physiological data is interpreted as generally supportive of a facial feedback theory of emotion: where significant between-groups' differences were obtained in facial activity, as in vicarious instigation, autonomic arousal differences also emerged; where no expressive differences were obtained, as in vicarious conditioning, no differences in autonomic arousal were found.     

Temporal cognition and the phenomenology of time: a multiplicative function for apparent duration

The literature on time perception is discussed. This is done with reference both to the "cognitive-timer" model for time estimation and to the subjective experience of apparent duration. Three assumptions underlying the model are scrutinized. I stress the strong interplay among attention, arousal, and time perception, which is at the base of the cognitive-timer model. It is suggested that a multiplicative function of two key components (the number of subjective time units and their size) should predict apparent duration. Implications for other cognitive domains are drawn, and in particular an analogy is suggested between apparent duration and apparent movement.     

How emotional auditory stimuli modulate time perception

Emotional and neutral sounds rated for valence and arousal were used to investigate the influence of emotions on timing in reproduction and verbal estimation tasks with durations from 2 s to 6 s. Results revealed an effect of emotion on temporal judgment, with emotional stimuli judged to be longer than neutral ones for a similar arousal level. Within scalar expectancy theory (J. Gibbon, R. Church, & W. Meck, 1984), this suggests that emotion-induced activation generates an increase in pacemaker rate, leading to a longer perceived duration. A further exploration of self-assessed emotional dimensions showed an effect of valence and arousal. Negative sounds were judged to be longer than positive ones, indicating that negative stimuli generate a greater increase of activation. High-arousing stimuli were perceived to be shorter than low-arousing ones. Consistent with attentional models of timing, this seems to reflect a decrease of attention devoted to time, leading to a shorter perceived duration. These effects, robust across the 2 tasks, are limited to short intervals and overall suggest that both activation and attentional processes modulate the timing of emotional events.     

The enhancing effects of anxiety on arousal in sexually dysfunctional and functional women

Effects of anxiety on sexual arousal were examined to determine if sexually dysfunctional and functional women exhibit different patterns of physiological and subjective response. Subjects viewed 2 videotape conditions: an anxiety-evoking and neutral-control preexposure stimulus, each paired with a sexual arousal-evoking stimulus. Anxiety preexposure enhanced the rate and magnitude of genital arousal for both dysfunctional and functional subjects in relation to the neutral condition. Despite increased genital responses, both groups reported less subjective sexual arousal after anxiety preexposure. Functional subjects exhibited greater physiological but not subjective arousal than dysfunctional subjects in both conditions. Results are discussed in terms of desynchronous patterns of sexual response, mechanisms by which sympathetic activation enhances sexual arousal, and implications for treatment of sexual dysfunction in women.     

The compression of perceived time in a hot environment depends on physiological and psychological factors

The human perception of time was observed under extremely hot conditions. Young healthy men performed a time production task repeatedly in 4 experimental trials in either a temperate (22 °C, relative humidity 35%) or a hot (42 °C, relative humidity 18%) environment and with or without a moderate-intensity treadmill exercise. Within 1 hour, the produced durations indicated a significant compression of short intervals (0.5 to 10 s) in the combination of exercising and high ambient temperature, while neither variable/condition alone was enough to yield the effect. Temporal judgement was analysed in relation to different indicators of arousal, such as critical flicker frequency (CFF), core temperature, heart rate, and subjective ratings of fatigue and exertion. The arousal-sensitive internal clock model (originally proposed by Treisman) is used to explain the temporal compression while exercising in heat. As a result, we suggest that the psychological response to heat stress, the more precisely perceived fatigue, is important in describing the relationship between core temperature and time perception. Temporal compression is related to higher core temperature, but only if a certain level of perceived fatigue is accounted for, implying the existence of a thermoemotional internal clock.     

Physiological and subjective measures of anxiety during flooding

Patterns of physiological arousal and subjective reports of anxiety were examined during individual sessions of imaginal flooding of five phobic subjects. A curvilinear pattern of increased, followed by decreased, arousal characterized changes in heart rate, respiration rate and subjective anxiety. Heart rate tended to reach its peak level before respiration rate and subjective anxiety. Intercorrelations between these measures were generally positive and significant. Comparisons between periods of high and low subjective arousal revealed a significantly greater correlation for low than for high arousal only for the subjective anxiety by respiration-rate correlation.     

Feeling the Heat: Body Temperature and the Rate of Subjective Time, Revisited

Experiments investigating timing behaviour in humans under conditions where body temperature was raised or (much more rarely) lowered, dating from 1927 to 1993, were reviewed. These tested the hypothesis that humans possess a temperature-sensitive chemical or biological internal clock. Most studies used conditions in which subjects produced or estimated durations less than 100 sec long, probably using chronometric counting, but other experimental paradigms were sometimes employed. Data from each study were expressed in a uniform fashion, as plots of changes in the rate of subjective time (estimated from changes in timing behaviour) against changes in body temperature. In almost all cases, rate of subjective time increased when body temperature increased above normal, and decreased when body temperature was lowered below normal, although observations of the latter type were rare. The data also suggested a parametric effect of body temperature, with higher temperatures generally producing faster subjective time. Some possible mechanisms for the effects obtained were discussed, with the most promising explanation probably being that the temperature manipulation produces changes in arousal.