Expectation, information processing, and subjective duration

Psychological Features of the Human <I>Tempoworld</I> as Predictors of Solving a Cognitive Task

The paper reviews such phenomena as time perception, temporal structure of the human world, the so-called tempoworld, and the psychophysiological mechanism of temporal dynamics. The article also covers various ways of assessing the relationship between the characteristic features of solving cognitive tasks and the temporal characteristics and structuraldynamic components of positional strategies of personal cognitive-noetic development. The research results revealed the specificity of the process of solving cognitive tasks in groups of respondents with different typological temporal characteristics. Students who knew their dominant temporal-cognitive features made fewer mistakes when solving cognitive tasks related to spatial perception. The experiment revealed some positional strategies as significant predictors of the process of solving a cognitive task, manifested in the features of the human tempoworld. The speed and accuracy of performing cognitive tasks depended not so much on the specifics of these tasks, but on the temporal characteristics of a person, manifested in the degree of balance of modal assessments of life fulfillment. The list of significant predictors of the solving a cognitive task included such psychological features of the human tempoworld as positional strategies, which were dominated by the value-semantic component and motivational self-determination. The research revealed various features of cognitive involvement in the subjective past, present, and future, as well as the relationship between temporal modality and ready-made action algorithms when solving cognitive tasks. 

The simultaneous oddball: Oddball presentation does not affect simultaneity judgments

The oddball duration illusion describes how a rare or nonrepeated stimulus is perceived as lasting longer than a common or repeated stimulus. It has been argued that the oddball duration illusion could emerge because of an earlier perceived onset of an oddball stimulus. However, most methods used to assess the perceived duration of an oddball stimulus are ill suited to detect onset effects. Therefore, in the current article, I tested the perceived onset of oddball and standard stimuli using a simultaneity judgment task. In Experiments 1 and 2, repetition and rarity of the target stimulus were varied, and participants were required to judge whether the target stimulus and another stimulus were concurrent. In Experiment 3, I tested whether a brief initial stimulus could act as a conditioning stimulus in the oddball duration illusion. This was to ensure an oddball duration illusion could have occurred given the short duration of stimuli in the first two experiments. In both the first two experiments, I found moderate support for no onset-based difference between oddball and nonoddball stimuli. In Experiment 3, I found that a short conditioning stimulus could still lead to the oddball duration illusion occurring, removing this possible explanation for the null result. Experiment 4 showed that an oddball duration illusion could emerge given the rarity of the stimulus and a concurrent sound. In sum, the current article found evidence against an onset-based explanation of the oddball duration illusion.

Time Perception of an Artwork's Manipulation Is Distorted by Patients With Parkinson's Disease

Objectives: In artwork appreciation situations, individuals often show altered time perception. We tested the hypothesis that Parkinson's disease (PD) patients present movement patterns that have an impact on the time perception of artwork manipulation time. We predicted that, compared to healthy controls (non-PD), differences in the exploratory behavior of patients would evoke alteration of artwork manipulation time perception. Methods: Ten PD patients and 10 non-PD participants manipulated two reproductions of artwork with different complexity levels from the series "Bichos" by Lygia Clark. Subsequently, participants performed a verbal estimation regarding the temporal duration of their manipulations. The exploratory behavior was analyzed. Results: All participants overestimated the artwork manipulation time. However, PD patients, regardless of the artwork's level of complexity, showed shorter manipulation time and minor time overestimation compared to the non-PD participants. PD patients touched the artworks more often, especially the more complex artworks, than the non-PD participants; in contrast, PD patients moved the artworks less often, particularly the less complex artwork. Conclusion: PD patients showed an altered perception of artwork manipulation time. This suggests that exploratory behavior influenced temporal estimation. Besides, it is likely that PD patients had presented a decreased ability to manage attention during the task, which interfered in the cognitive reconstruction of its duration. Considered altogether, these appointments indicate that, as a result of cognitive and motor deficits, PD patients showed impairment in temporal information processing. The exploratory behavior facilitated the understanding of these results and processes in terms of motor-timing operations of the basal ganglia-thalamocortical system.