Time perception in response to ashamed faces in children and adults

Time-Perception Deficits in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The present meta-analysis quantified the deficit in time perception in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) throughout the lifespan and examined potential moderators of this deficit. Our sample of 824 effect sizes showed a mean g of 0.688 that was moderated by the age of the sample and working memory. Separate moderator analyses for samples below or above the age of 18 showed that the link with working memory only applied to the samples below the age of 18, whereas an effect of ADHD subtype only applied to samples 18 and above. The discussion highlights the implications for remediation and avenues for future research.

Time distortions induced by high-arousing emotional compared to low-arousing neutral faces: an event-related potential study

Emotions influence our perception of time. Arousal and valence are considered different dimensions of emotions that might interactively affect the perception of time. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the possible time distortions induced by emotional (happy/angry) high-arousing faces compared to neutral, low-arousing faces. Previous works suggested that emotional stimuli enhance the amplitudes of several posterior components, such as Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and Late Positive Potential (LPP). These components reflect several stages of emotional processing. To this end, we conducted an event-related potential (ERP) study with a temporal bisection task. We hypothesized that the partial dissociation of these ERP components would shed more light on the possible relations of valence and arousal on emotional facial regulation and their consequential effects on behavioral timing. The behavioral results demonstrated a significant effect for emotional stimuli, as happy faces were overestimated relative to angry faces. Our results also indicated higher temporal sensitivity for angry faces. The analyzed components (EPN and LLP) provided further insights into the qualitative differences between stimuli. Finally, the results were interpreted considering the internal clock model and two-stage processing of emotional stimuli.

EEG frequency tagging evidence of intact social interaction recognition in adults with autism

To explain the social difficulties in autism, many studies have been conducted on social stimuli processing. However, this research has mostly used basic social stimuli (e.g., eyes, faces, hands, single agent), not resembling the complexity of what we encounter in our daily social lives and what people with autism experience difficulties with. Third-party social interactions are complex stimuli that we come across often and are also highly relevant for social functioning. Interestingly, the existing behavioral studies point to altered social interaction processing in autism. However, it is not clear whether this is due to altered recognition or altered interpretation of social interactions. Here, we specifically investigated the recognition of social interaction in adults with and without autism. More precisely, we measured neural responses to social scenes depicting either social interaction or not with an electroencephalogram frequency tagging task and compared these responses between adults with and without autism (N = 61). The results revealed an enhanced response to social scenes with interaction, replicating previous findings in a neurotypical sample. Crucially, this effect was found in both groups, with no difference between them. This suggests that social interaction recognition is not atypical in adults with autism. Taken together with the previous behavioral evidence, our study thus suggests that individuals with autism are able to recognize social interactions, but that they might not extract the same information from those interactions or that they might use the extracted information differently.

Effect of food cues on time perception: influence of calories and diet control

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence on individuals' time perception of observing a range of foods differing in calorific content. In a first experiment, 92 adult participants performed a temporal bisection task with stimulus durations presented in the form of high- or low-calorie food pictures as well as matched non-food control pictures. In a second experiment, 102 participants performed a strict replication of Experiment 1, without the low-calorie pictures condition as it showed less pronounced effects. Across the two experiments, the data revealed common results. An overestimation of time was observed in relation to high-calorie food pictures when compared with non-food pictures (Experiment 2), and the effect was a function of participants' diet control (Experiments 1 & 2). Contrary to our hypothesis, the more the participants reported controlling their diet, the less they overestimated the time when presented with food stimuli. The participants who controlled their diet reported being less aroused by the high-calorie food pictures, allowing the assumption that the modulation in time overestimation relies on the arousal response generated by high-calorie food pictures.

The Effects of Angry Expressions and Fearful Expressions on Duration Perception: An ERP Study

Little is known about the electrophysiological basis of the effect of threat-related emotional stimuli with different motivational direction on duration perception. Thus, event-related potentials were employed to examine the effects of angry expressions and fearful expressions on perception of different duration (490-910 ms). Behavioral results showed there was a greater underestimation of the duration of angry expressions (approach-motivated negative stimuli) than fearful expressions (withdrawal-motivated negative stimuli), compared with neutral expressions. Event-related potentials results showed that, the area of Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) evoked by angry expression, fearful expression and neutral expression gradually increased. These results indicated that specific electrophysiological mechanisms may underlie the attention effects of angry and fearful expressions on timing. Specifically, compared with neutral expressions, fearful expressions and angry expressions both are likely to distract more attentional resources from timer, in particular, angry expressions attract more attention resources than fearful expressions from timer. The major contribution of the current study is to provide electrophysiological evidences of fear vs. anger divergence in the aspect of time perception and to demonstrate beyond the behavioral level that the categorization of threat-related emotions should be refined so to highlight the adaptability of the human defense system.

Do I dislike what you dislike? Investigating the effect of disgust on time processing

Time perception can be distorted by emotional stimuli. The present study aims to investigate the effect of disgust on time perception in young adults. Here, we report two experiments in which a time bisection task was used with intervals lasting 400 ms (short standard) to 1600 ms (long standard). In Experiment 1, temporal intervals were marked by neutral images or images from food (rotten, joyful), and facial (disgust, happy) categories. In Experiment 2, disgust-eliciting and neutral stimuli belonging to seven different domains were used: faces, food, animals, body products, injury/infections, death and hygiene. Results showed temporal overestimations when, compared to neutral conditions, disgusted faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and disgusting death and hygiene stimuli (Experiment 2) were used, and a temporal underestimation when images of rotten food (Experiment 1) were used. Results are discussed in terms of arousal-based and attention-based processes and showed that the degree of the emotional component influences time perception.

Embodied time and the out-of-body experience of the self

Using an out-of-body paradigm, the present study provided further empirical evidence for the theory of embodied time by suggesting that the body-self plays a key role in time judgments. Looking through virtual reality glasses, the participants saw the arm of a mannequin instead of their own arm. They had to judge the duration of the interval between two (perceived) touches applied to the mannequin's body after a series of strokes had been viewed being made to the mannequin and tactile strokes had been administered to the participants themselves. These strokes were administered either synchronously or asynchronously. During the interval, a pleasant (touch with a soft paintbrush) or an unpleasant stimulation (touch with a pointed knife) was applied to the mannequin. The results showed that the participants felt the perceived tactile stimulations in their own bodies more strongly after the synchronous than the asynchronous stroking condition, a finding which is consistent with the out-of-body illusion. In addition, the interval duration was judged longer in the synchronous than in the asynchronous condition. This time distortion increased the greater the individual out-of-body experience was. Our results therefore highlight the importance of the awareness of the body-self in the processing of time, i.e., the significance of embodied time.

Amygdala-prefrontal cortex connectivity increased during face discrimination but not time perception

Time sensitivity is affected by emotional stimuli such as fearful faces. The effect of threatening stimuli on time perception depends on numerous factors, including task type and duration range. We applied a two-interval forced-choice task using face stimuli to healthy volunteers to evaluate time perception and emotion interaction using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We conducted finite impulse response analysis to examine time series for the significantly activated brain areas and psycho-physical interaction to investigate the connectivity between selected regions. Time perception engaged a right-lateralised frontoparietal network, while a face discrimination task activated the amygdala and fusiform face area (FFA). No voxels were active with regard to the effect of expression (fearful versus neutral). In parallel with this, our behavioural results showed that attending to the fearful faces did not cause duration overestimation. Finally, connectivity of the amygdala and FFA to the middle frontal gyrus increased during the face processing condition compared to the timing task. Overall, our results suggest that the prefrontal-amygdala connectivity might be required for the emotional processing of facial stimuli. On the other hand, attentional load, task type and task difficulty are discussed as possible factors that influence the effects of emotion on time perception.

Temporal Processing of Joyful and Disgusting Food Pictures by Women With an Eating Disorder

The present study used the presentation of food pictures and judgements about their duration to assess the emotions elicited by food in women suffering from an eating disorder (ED). Twenty-three women diagnosed with an ED, namely anorexia (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN), and 23 healthy controls (HC) completed a temporal bisection task and a duration discrimination task. Intervals were marked with emotionally pre-rated pictures of joyful and disgusting food, and pictures of neutral objects. The results showed that, in the bisection task, AN women overestimated the duration of food pictures in comparison to neutral ones. Also, compared to participants with BN, they perceived the duration of joyful food pictures as longer, and tended to overestimate the duration of the disgusting ones. These effects on perceived duration suggest that AN women experienced an intense reaction of fear when they were confronted to food pictures. More precisely, by having elevated the arousal level and activated the defensive system, food pictures seemed to have speeded up the rhythm of the AN participants’ internal clock, which led to an overestimation of images’ duration. In addition, the results revealed that, in both tasks, ED women presented a lower temporal sensitivity than HC, which was related to their ED symptomatology (i.e., BMI, restraint and concern) and, particularly, to their weaker cognitive abilities in terms of attention, processing speed and working memory. Considered all together, the findings of the present experiment highlight the role of fear and anxiety in the manifestations of AN and point out the importance of considering non-temporal factors in the interpretation of time perception performance.

The impact of emotion on numerical estimation: A developmental perspective

Recent literature has revealed underestimation effects in numerical judgments when adult participants are presented with emotional stimuli (as opposed to neutral). Whether these numerical biases emerge early in development however, or instead reflect overt, learned responses to emotional stimuli across development are unclear. Moreover, reported links between numerical acuity and mathematics achievement point to the importance of exploring how numerical approximation abilities in childhood may be influenced in real-world affective contexts. In this study, children (aged 6-10 years) and adults were presented with happy and neutral facial stimuli in the context of a numerical bisection task. Results reveal that children, like adults, underestimate number following emotional (i.e., happy) faces (relative to neutral). However, children's, but not adult's, responses were also significantly more precise following emotional stimuli. In a second experiment, adult judgments revealed a similar increase in precision following emotional stimuli when numerical discriminations were more challenging (involving larger sets). Together, results are the first to reveal children, like adults, underestimate number in the context of emotional stimuli and this underestimation bias is accompanied with enhanced response precision.

Emotional modulation of interval timing and time perception

Like other senses, our perception of time is not veridical, but rather, is modulated by changes in environmental context. Anecdotal experiences suggest that emotions can be powerful modulators of time perception; nevertheless, the functional and neural mechanisms underlying emotion-induced temporal distortions remain unclear. Widely accepted pacemaker-accumulator models of time perception suggest that changes in arousal and attention have unique influences on temporal judgments and contribute to emotional distortions of time perception. However, such models conflict with current views of arousal and attention suggesting that current models of time perception do not adequately explain the variability in emotion-induced temporal distortions. Instead, findings provide support for a new perspective of emotion-induced temporal distortions that emphasizes both the unique and interactive influences of arousal and attention on time perception over time. Using this framework, we discuss plausible functional and neural mechanisms of emotion-induced temporal distortions and how these temporal distortions may have important implications for our understanding of how emotions modulate our perceptual experiences in service of adaptive responding to biologically relevant stimuli.

Recent advances in understanding emotion-driven temporal distortions

Emotions are powerful drivers of distortions in time perception. Recent work continues to support arousal and attentional mechanisms of emotion-driven temporal distortions. A possible memory-related mechanism and various modulatory factors, such as age, gender, and psychopathology, have also been implicated in such distortions. Beyond the rich behavioral literature on this topic, neurobiological substrates associated with emotion-driven temporal distortions have begun to be identified and represent an important next step for research within this domain. The study of emotion-driven temporal distortions holds great promise for advancing our understanding of this perceptual phenomenon and how it may play a functional role in mediating changes in cognition, behavior, and emotion.

Effects of Neutral and Fearful Mood on Duration Estimation of Neutral and Fearful Face Stimuli

Previous research showed that fearful faces produce longer temporal estimates than neutral faces. This study probed whether fearful mood enhances this effect. In two experiments, participants viewed neutral and threatening film excerpts and subsequently evaluated the duration of neutral and fearful faces in a bisection task. In Experiment 1, where neutral mood was induced before fearful mood, skin conductance levels (SCLs) and subjective emotion ratings indicated successful mood induction. Compared to neutral mood, fearful mood lengthened subjective duration estimates irrespective of stimulus quality. Additionally, stimuli of fearful faces were temporally overestimated relative to neutral faces; but only in neutral, not in fearful mood. In Experiment 2, where fearful mood was induced before neutral mood, subjective emotion ratings, but not SCLs, indicated successful mood induction. Moreover, neither mood nor facial expressions influenced duration estimation. Taken together, the results show that fearful mood may accelerate an internal pacemaker but does not enhance temporal perception differences between fearful and neutral faces. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of dissociating stimulus, state, and trait emotionality for our understanding of emotional influences on temporal perception.

The emotional body and time perception

We examined the effects of emotional bodily expressions on the perception of time. Participants were shown bodily expressions of fear, happiness and sadness in a temporal bisection task featuring different stimulus duration ranges. Stimulus durations were judged to be longer for bodily expressions of fear than for those of sadness, whereas no significant difference was observed between sad and happy postures. In addition, the magnitude of the lengthening effect of fearful versus sad postures increased with duration range. These results suggest that the perception of fearful bodily expressions increases the level of arousal which, in turn, speeds up the internal clock system underlying the representation of time. The effect of bodily expressions on time perception is thus consistent with findings for other highly arousing emotional stimuli, such as emotional facial expressions.

The complex duration perception of emotional faces: effects of face direction

The perceived duration of emotional face stimuli strongly depends on the expressed emotion. But, emotional faces also differ regarding a number of other features like gaze, face direction, or sex. Usually, these features have been controlled by only using pictures of female models with straight gaze and face direction. Doi and Shinohara (2009) reported that an overestimation of angry faces could only be found when the model's gaze was oriented toward the observer. We aimed at replicating this effect for face direction. Moreover, we explored the effect of face direction on the duration perception sad faces. Controlling for the sex of the face model and the participant, female and male participants rated the duration of neutral, angry, and sad face stimuli of both sexes photographed from different perspectives in a bisection task. In line with current findings, we report a significant overestimation of angry compared to neutral face stimuli that was modulated by face direction. Moreover, the perceived duration of sad face stimuli did not differ from that of neutral faces and was not influenced by face direction. Furthermore, we found that faces of the opposite sex appeared to last longer than those of the same sex. This outcome is discussed with regards to stimulus parameters like the induced arousal, social relevance, and an evolutionary context.

Time perception and dynamics of facial expressions of emotions

Two experiments were run to examine the effects of dynamic displays of facial expressions of emotions on time judgments. The participants were given a temporal bisection task with emotional facial expressions presented in a dynamic or a static display. Two emotional facial expressions and a neutral expression were tested and compared. Each of the emotional expressions had the same affective valence (unpleasant), but one was high-arousing (expressing anger) and the other low-arousing (expressing sadness). Our results showed that time judgments are highly sensitive to movements in facial expressions and the emotions expressed. Indeed, longer perceived durations were found in response to the dynamic faces and the high-arousing emotional expressions compared to the static faces and low-arousing expressions. In addition, the facial movements amplified the effect of emotions on time perception. Dynamic facial expressions are thus interesting tools for examining variations in temporal judgments in different social contexts.

Children’s understanding of others’ emotional states

The ability to infer the emotional states of others is central to our everyday interactions. These inferences can be drawn from several different sources of information occurring simultaneously in the communication situation. Based on previous studies revealing that children pay more heed to situational context than to emotional prosody when inferring the emotional states of others, we decided to focus on this issue, broadening the investigation to find out whether the natural combination of emotional prosody and faces (that is, paralinguistic cues) can overcome the dominance of situational context (that is, extralinguistic cues), and if so, at what age? In Experiment 1, children aged 3–9 years played a computer game in which they had to judge the emotional state of a character, based on two sources of information (that is, extralinguistic and paralinguistic) that were either congruent or conflicting. In Condition 1, situational context was compared with emotional prosody; in Condition 2, situational context was compared with emotional prosody combined with emotional faces. In a complementary study (Experiment 2) the same 3-year-olds performed recognition tasks with the three cues presented in isolation. Results highlighted the fundamental role of both cues, as a) situational context dominated prosody in all age groups, but b) the combination of emotional facial expression and prosody overcame this dominance, especially among the youngest and oldest children. We discuss our findings in the light of previous research and theories of both language and emotional development.

Time perception, emotions and mood disorders

In this review, we describe recent internal clock models accounting for time perception and look at how they try to explain the time distortions produced by emotion. We then discuss the results of studies of patients suffering from affective disorders (depression) who experience the feeling of time slowing down. A distinction is thus made between time perception and explicit awareness of the passage of time. We conclude that the feeling that time is passing slowly is not systematically associated with a disruption in the basic mechanisms underlying time perception.

The effect of facial attractiveness on temporal perception

Previous research suggests that feelings of fear, dislike, shame and sadness affect our perception of duration (Droit-Volet et al., 2004; Gil et al., 2009). The current study sought to expand our understanding of the variables which moderate temporal perception by examining whether the attractiveness of a face influenced its perceived duration. Participants completed a verbal estimation task in which they judged the duration of attractive, unattractive and neutral faces. The results showed that participants underestimated the duration of unattractive faces relative to attractive and neutral faces. Estimates of unattractive faces were also less accurate than those of the attractive and neutral faces. The results are consistent with Gil et al.'s (2009) suggestion that the duration of disliked stimuli are underestimated relative to liked and neutral stimuli because they detract attention from temporal perception. Analysis of the slope and intercept of the estimation gradients supports Zakay and Block's (1997) suggestion that reduced attention to time results in a multiplicative underestimation of duration.

Emotion and time perception: effects of film-induced mood

Previous research into emotion and time perception has been designed to study the time perception of emotional events themselves (e.g., facial expression). Our aim was to investigate the effect of emotions per se on the subsequent time judgment of a neutral, non-affective event. In the present study, the participants were presented with films inducing a specific mood and were subsequently given a temporal bisection task. More precisely, the participants were given two temporal bisection tasks, one before and the other after viewing the emotional film. Three emotional films were tested: one eliciting fear, another sadness, and a neutral control film. In addition, the direct mood experience was assessed using the Brief Mood Introspective Scale that was administered to the participants at the beginning and the end of the session. The results showed that the perception of time did not change after viewing either the neutral control films or the sad films although the participants reported being sadder and less aroused after than before watching the sad film clips. In contrast, the stimulus durations were judged longer after than before viewing the frightening films that were judged to increase the emotion of fear and arousal level. In combination with findings from previous studies, our data suggest that the selective lengthening effect after watching frightening films was mediated by an effect of arousal on the speed of the internal clock system.