Attentional distraction and time perception in children

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to test the effect of attentional distraction on temporal bisection performance in 5-and 8-year-old children. During a rst learning phase, children were trained to discriminate on a temporal bisection task a short standard duration (2 sec) from a long one (8 sec), presented as visual stimuli. Later, in a second testing phase, intermediate durations (3, 4, 5, 6, 7 s), including the standard durations, were presented. Children's task still was to report if it was a short standard duration or a long one. In addition, during the non-standard duration, a distracter either did or did not appear. Results showed increasing proportions of "it is the long standard duration" (response "long") with increasing stimulus durations in both distracter and non-distracter conditions. However, psychophysical functions were atter in the 5-year-olds than in the 8-year-olds, revealing their lower sensibility to time. Nevertheless, the 5-year-olds' proportion of long responses was higher under the distracter than in the non-distracter condition. Consequently, the point of subjective equality (PSE), corresponding to the stimulus duration to which the subject produced 50% of responses of "long" was lower under the distracter condition as compared to the non-distracter condition. Conversely, for the 8-year-olds, the PSE was signi cantly higher in the distracter than in the non-distracter condition. Five-year old children overestimated the time in the presence of an attentional distracter, whereas 8-year olds tended to underestimate it. The leftward shift and the rightward shift of the PSE in the 5-and the 8-year-olds, respectively, were accounted for by limited-capacity attention in the ve-year olds. L'objectif de cette étude est de tester l'effect d'un distracteur attentionnel sur les performances temporelles d'enfants âgés de 5 et de 8 ans, soumis à une tâche de bissection temporelle. Dans une première phase d'apprentissage, les enfants sont entraînés à discriminer une durée standard courte (2 s) d'une durée standard longue (8 s), chacune présentée sous forme de stimulus visuel. Puis, dans une seconde phase test, des durées non-standard sont présentées comprenant les durées standard et des durées intermédiaires (3, 4, 5, 6, 7 s), la tâche des enfants consistant toujours à dire si c'est la durée standard courte ou la durée standard longue. En outre, durant cette durée non-standard, un distracteur attentionnel est ou non délivré. Les résultats montrent que la proportion de réponses "c'est le standard long" (réponse "long") augmente avec la durée des stimuli dans les 2 conditions expérimentales, avec et sans distracteur. Touefois, les fonctions psychophysiques ainsi obtenues apparaissent plus plates chez les enfants de 5 ans que chez ceux de 8 ans, ce qui révèle leur moins bonne sensibilité au temps. De plus, à l'âge de 5 ans, la proportion de réponses "long" d'égalité subjective, correspondant à la durée du stimulus pour laquelle le sujet produit s'avère plus élevée dans la condition avec distracteur qu...

Development of time sensitivity: Duration ratios in time bisection

“…This is consistent with the result recently found in bisection by Zélanti and Droit-Volet (2011) who used more easily discriminable anchor durations and showed that the attention/executive function was the best predictor of age variance in sensitivity to time. This is also consistent with the results of experimental studies showing that the variability in children's time discrimination decreases when they are provided with a warning signal that improves the orientation of attention toward the stimulus duration to be processed, or a context with a reduced number of attentional distractors that improved the amount of attention devoted to time processing (Droit-Volet, 2003, 2011Gautier & Droit-Volet, 2002). This is also entirely consistent with studies that showed time disturbance in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (e.g., Huang et al, 2012;Rubia, Halari, Christakou, & Taylor, 2009;Smith et al, 2011;Smith, Taylor, Warner Rogers, Newman, & Rubia, 2002).…”

Cognitive abilities explaining age-related changes in time perception of short and long durations

“…Several studies have shown the importance of attention for the processing of long durations (Coull et al, 2004;Lewis & Miall, 2009). So far as young children are concerned, when they estimate durations while performing a concurrent nontemporal task or in the presence of attentional distractors, they systematically produce shorter and more variable durations (Arlin, 1986;Droit-Volet et al, 2006;Gautier & Droit-Volet, 2002b;Zakay, 1992). These findings have been explained in terms of the lesser volume of attentional resources available to young children for the processing of temporal information.…”

“…Indeed, attentional functions largely depend on the prefrontal cortex, which develops slowly throughout childhood and into young adulthood (Casey, Tottenham, Liston, & Durston, 2005;Diamond, 2002;Tsujimoto, 2008). Furthermore, studies on time perception that have used both divided and distracting attention tasks have shown that the attention-related shortening effect is greater in 5-year-olds than in older children (Droit-Volet, Delgado, & Rattat, 2006;Gautier & Droit-Volet, 2002a, 2002bZakay, 1992). This explains why time estimation is often impaired in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (e.g., Smith, Taylor, Rogers, Newman, & Rubia, 2002;Toplak, Dockstader, & Tannock, 2006).…”

Auditory and visual differences in time perception? An investigation from a developmental perspective with neuropsychological tests

“…In addition, children's sensitivity to time appears to be lower for visual signals than for auditory signals, and this difference in the sensitivity to time between these two modalities decreases with age. Developmental studies have indicated that the lower sensitivity to time in young children was due mainly to their limited attention capacities (e.g., Droit-Volet, 2003, 2011Gautier & Droit-Volet, 2002a, 2002bZélanti & Droit-Volet, 2011). Therefore, we can suggest that the lower temporal sensitivity for visual signals than for auditory signals, which is more marked in young children, was in great part related to the heavy attentional demands on timing of visual stimuli.…”