Executive processes and timing: Comparing timing with and without reference memory

Abstract

Temporal perception is influenced by executive function. However, performance on different temporal tasks is often associated with different executive functions. This study examined whether using reference memory during a task influenced how performance was associated with executive resources. Participants completed temporal generalisation and bisection tasks, in their normal versions involving reference memory and in episodic versions without reference memory. Each timing task had two difficulty levels: easy and hard. Correlations between performance on these tasks and measures of executive function (updating, inhibition, task switching, and access to semantic memory) were assessed. Accuracy on the temporal generalisation task was correlated with memory access for all versions of the task. Updating correlated with accuracy only for the reference memory-based version of the task. Temporal bisection performance presented a different pattern of correlations. The bisection point was negatively correlated with inhibition scores, except for the easy episodic condition. The Weber ratio, considered a measure of temporal sensitivity, was negatively correlated with memory access only in the hard episodic condition. Together, the findings suggest that previous models of generalisation and bisection may not accurately reflect the underlying cognitive processes involved in the tasks.

Differences in the temporal processing between identification and categorization of durations: A behavioral and ERP study

“…These components were linked to attentional and working memory resources allocated to temporal processing. This suggests that the decreased amplitude in the bisection task means that this paradigm engages globally fewer resources than the generalization one, and is concordant with a recent study reporting that bisecting durations could be easier than identifying them (Ogden et al, 2018). According to these authors, this could happen because the bisection does not engage reference memory for short and long standard durations, contrary to what has been proposed by models of bisection (Wearden, 1991(Wearden, , 2004 .…”

“…In the generalization task, participants had to remember a previously learned standard interval in order to determine whether or not the presented duration was or was not identical to it. As previously suggested (Ogden et al, 2018) , there may be no such recruitment of long term memory in the bisection task, easing the cognitive demand. Moreover, bisecting durations implies a very different decision than identifying them.…”

“…On one hand, the bisection task could be more cognitively demanding because it relied on at least two durations in reference memory (the short and long standards). On the other hand, the bisection task could be less cognitively demanding due to the suggestion that there are in fact no standards stored in reference memory in this task (Droit-Volet & Rattat, 2007;Ogden, MacKenzie-Phelan, Mongtomery, Fisk, & Wearden, 2018), while the generalization is based on storage and retrieval of a standard interval. We found several behavioral and ERP results indicating that categorizing durations (bisection) mobilizes fewer resources than identification (generalization).…”

“…Firstly, if the bisection task relies on the comparison between the presented duration and the two standards (short and long), then the cognitive demands should be higher in this paradigm than in the generalization one that requires only a comparison between the presented duration and one standard. Secondly, if the bisection task does not require any long-term memory storage of standard durations, as previously suggested (Droit-Volet & Rattat, 2007;Ogden et al, 2018) , then the generalization task should require more cognitive resources.…”

“…For present purposes, the important result was that performance on the "normal" and "episodic" temporal generalization tasks differed, whereas this was not true for the bisection task: the versions supposedly with and without reference memory of standards produced the same behavior. Ogden et al (2018) did not present a formal model of performance on bisection, but a potential conclusion from their study is that bisection is based on some "local" criterion, which may vary from trial to trial. See also Droit-Volet and Rattat (2007) for a similar idea.…”