Perceived time expands and contracts within each heartbeat

Arslanova, Irena; Kotsaris, Vassilis; Tsakiris, Manos

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.034

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Therefore, “more” of the external world is sensed, mimicking the effect of attention or stimulus intensity on lengthening perceived duration (Gronding, 2010; Mattes & Ulrich, 1998; Matthews & Meck, 2016; Tse et al, 2004). A strong support for this causal account comes from a recent study showing that duration of a brief neutral stimulus is perceived longer if presented on the cardiac diastole (compared to systole), when baroreceptors are less active (Arslanova & Tsakiris, 2022). Diastole becomes a more dominant cardiac phase as the duration between heartbeats (RR) gets longer, and, therefore, its impact is likely to resemble the effect of a lower heart rate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wrinkles in subsecond time perception are synchronized to the heart

et al. 2023

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The role of the heart in the experience of time has been long theorized but empirical evidence is scarce. Here we examined the interaction between fine-grained cardiac dynamics and the momentary experience of subsecond intervals. Participants performed a temporal bisection task for brief tones (80-188 ms) synchronized with the heart. We developed a cardiac Drift-Diffusion Model (cDDM) that embedded contemporaneous heart rate dynamics into the temporal decision model. Results revealed the existence of temporal wrinkles -dilation or contraction of short intervals -in synchrony with cardiac dynamics. A lower pre-stimulus heart rate was associated with an initial bias in encoding the millisecond-level stimulus duration as longer, consistent with facilitation of sensory intake. Concurrently, a higher pre-stimulus heart rate aided more consistent and faster temporal judgments through more efficient evidence accumulation. Additionally, a higher speed of post-stimulus cardiac deceleration, a bodily marker of attention, was associated with a greater accumulation of sensory temporal evidence in the cDDM. These findings suggest a unique role of cardiac dynamics in the momentary experience of time. Our cDDM framework opens a new methodological avenue for investigating the role of the heart in time perception and perceptual judgment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wrinkles in subsecond time perception are synchronized to the heart

et al. 2023

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“…Cardiac periods increased, and skin-conductance levels decreased steadily in the range of several seconds in the auditory [17] and visual modalities [18] during the encoding and the reproduction phases of the timing task. Similarly, duration timing in the millisecond time range has been shown to be influenced by the participants' beat-by-beat cardiac dynamics [19,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When the heart meets the mind Exploring the brain-heart interaction during time perception

Khoshnoud,

Leitritz,

Bozdağ

et al. 2023

Preprint

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It has been hypothesized that time estimation relies on bodily rhythms and interoceptive signals, such as heartbeats. Extending previous research demonstrating this connection, we provided further electrophysiological evidence that the brain registers heartbeats while tracking time intervals. We evaluated the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) and the contingent negative variation (CNV) during an auditory duration-reproduction task with intervals lasting 4, 8, and 12 seconds and a control reaction-time task employing the exact durations. The (interoceptive) Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ) and the heartbeat-counting task (HCT) were administered. The SAQ, but not the HCT scores, correlated with the mean reproduced durations for 4s, 8s, and 12s intervals: the higher the SAQ score (a stronger awareness of bodily signals), the longer the duration reproductions and the more accurate the timing behavior. The HEP amplitude within 130-270 ms (HEP1) and 470-520 ms (HEP2) after the R peak was smaller for the 4s interval than for the 8s and 12s intervals. This is a timing-specific effect, as the HEP amplitude did not differ for intervals in the reaction-time task. A ramp-like increase in HEP2 amplitudes was significant for the duration-encoding phase of the timing task, but not for the control reaction-time task. The HEP2 increase within the reproduction phase of the timing task correlated significantly with the reproduced durations for the 8s and the 12s intervals. The larger the registered increase in the HEP2, the greater the under-reproduction of the estimated duration. The initial and late CNV components were significantly more negative during the encoding phase than during the reaction-time task. Given the link between these components with attention modulation and temporal memory, we interpret the CNV findings as indicating greater executive resources oriented towards time. We conclude that interoceptive awareness (SAQ) and state-like cortical responses to the heartbeat (HEP) predict duration reproductions, emphasizing the notion of the embodiment of time.

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Dissociative Symptoms and Interoceptive Integration

Woelk,

Garfinkel

2024

Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences

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Perceived time expands and contracts within each heartbeat

Cited by 9 publications

References 58 publications

Wrinkles in subsecond time perception are synchronized to the heart

Wrinkles in subsecond time perception are synchronized to the heart

When the heart meets the mind Exploring the brain-heart interaction during time perception

Dissociative Symptoms and Interoceptive Integration

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