Changing time and emotions

The rhythm of chemotherapy and the felt experience of time: a front-loaded phenomenological retrospective cohort study

It is well-known that chemotherapy brings about various adverse physical effects such as fatigue, nausea, or vomiting, and that it lowers mental well-being. It is less known that it desynchronizes patients with social environment. This study explores the temporal aspects and challenges of chemotherapy. Three groups equal in size and distinguished according to weekly, biweekly, and triweekly treatment schemes, each independently representative in terms of sex and age of the cancer population (total N = 440) were compared. The study found that chemotherapy sessions, regardless of their frequency, patients' age, and the overall length of treatment, have a very large effect on changing the felt pace of time from flying to dragging (Cohen's d = 1.6655). Most patients pay more attention to the passing of time than before treatment (59.3%), which has to do with the disease (77.4%). They also experience the loss of control over time, which they subsequently attempt to regain. The patients' actual activities before and after chemotherapy, however, are mostly the same. All these aspects create a unique 'chemo-rhythm', in which the significance of the type of cancer and demographic variables is negligible, and the mere rhythmic nature of treatment plays a central role. In conclusion, patients find the 'chemo-rhythm' stressful, unpleasant and difficult to control. It is vital to prepare them for it and help to reduce its adverse effects.

"Carpe Diem?": Disjunction Effect of Incidental Affect on Intertemporal Choice

Incidental affect has an important impact on intertemporal choice (IC). This research aimed to test how positive incidental affect influences IC and its underlying mechanisms. We assumed that positive incidental affect may have a disjunction effect on IC that includes or excludes immediate time. Moreover, we examined the role of time perception for the effect of affect on IC. In Study 1, after undergoing affect priming by video clips, participants completed the IC task using a multiple staircase paradigm. Using Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling, we estimated the discount rate parameter by distinguishing “immediate” and “non-immediate” conditions of IC. The participants’ time perception was also measured. In Study 2, apart from the choice preference of IC, we additionally investigated the differences in the participants’ attention to delay and reward attributes before decision making. The results of the two studies indicated that positive incidental affect leads to longer time perception (Study 1) and prior and more attention to the delay attribute of IC (Study 2), which leads individuals to prefer immediate options in the IC (Studies 1 and 2). Moreover, there is a disjunction effect of affect; in other words, the incidental affect did not influence IC excluding immediate time (Studies 1 and 2). This study improves our understanding of the disjunctive effect and its mechanism of inducing a positive incidental affect on IC and thus provides a new perspective on how related decision making can be improved.

Using Virtual Reality to Study Subjective Time in Crowded Versus Uncrowded Environments

Human density in different locations influences time estimation. In this article, we report three experiments investigating whether research in virtual reality (VR) environments would replicate this earlier finding. In our first experiment, 35 participants wore head-mounted VR displays and watched two videos showing a cityscape and a countryside. While watching each video, participants were asked to provide their perceptions of 30 seconds of time passage. Perceived time in the cityscape condition was longer than in the countryside condition. In our second experiment, 43 participants wore head-mounted VR displays and watched two videos showing a crowded and uncrowded Ikebukuro station. While watching these videos, participants were asked to provide their perceptions of 60 seconds of time passage. Perceived time in the crowded condition was longer relative to the uncrowded condition. In our third experiment, 21 participants wore head-mounted displays and watched two videos showing a crowded and uncrowded nature park. While watching the videos, participants were asked to provide their perceptions of 60 seconds of time passage. These repeated findings in VR environments of longer time perception in crowded versus uncrowded conditions were similar to data reported by who examined how location and human density affected subjective time in the real world. We discussed the implications of the VR tool in subjective time research and how people perceive and use VR environments in daily life.

Time, self, and intertemporal choice

Neuroscientific studies of intertemporal choice (IC) have focused mainly on the neural representation of self-control mechanisms and valuation. This reflects what has been considered as the core of the IC phenomenon. The claim of this paper is that deviations from exponential reward discounting as a function of time might be fully accounted for by the deviation of subjective time from calendar time. This claim is based on evidence that specificities of time perception can modulate discounting. Consequently, time perception is fundamental to IC and it is crucial to understand the mechanisms underlying time processing in different situations; to investigate when human time perception differs from time as represented by the calendar metric system; and to study how time perception predicts choices. This paper surveys the recent literature on time perception in order to discuss the measuring of IC through time-perception specificities. The notion of self is also discussed within this temporal perspective. If time perception modulates discounting, and time perception is related to self, the relationship between self and time perception becomes a new path to be explored in the IC studies.