Processing of temporal duration information in working memory after frontodorsal tumour excisions

Abstract

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that impairments of temporal duration processing after frontal lobe lesions reflect deficits in executive monitoring functions rather than a domain-specific deficit in the maintenance of duration information in working memory. Patients with frontodorsal lesions, clinical controls with post-central lesions, and healthy controls performed recognition and classification tasks, which should allow for testing maintenance and monitoring functions, respectively. Results showed mild non-selective impairments of the frontal patients on both temporal and spatial recognition tasks, but a marked selective degradation on temporal classification while performance on spatial classification was unimpaired. This suggests that maintenance of duration information in working memory after frontal lesions is basically preserved but that, depending on executive task characteristics, there is a specific deficit in the strategic organization of this type of information.

Oscillatory multiplexing of neural population codes for interval timing and working memory

“…In this sense, interval timing and working memory are intimately related and may largely be distinguished in terms of the type of information that is extracted from the underlying mechanisms, i.e., duration and temporal order information in the case of interval timing and specific auditory, visual, or semantic information in the case of working memory (see Baddeley, 2012;. However, it's important to note that interval timing reflects a specialized form of working memory in that an internal representation of time needs to be maintained in order to control temporal processing even in the absence of an external stimulus (Aagten-Murphy et al, 2014;Buhusi and Meck, 2000;Hälbig et al, 2002;Meck and Benson, 2002;Muller and Nobre, 2014;Wiener, 2014;Wiener and Coslett, 2008).…”