Slower Time estimation in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

Cognitive deficits in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and dissociative symptoms suggest there may be an underlying and persistent problem with temporal processing in PTSD, but this question has not been systematically examined. We investigated the ability of a group of PTSD participants in estimating the duration of supra-second visual stimuli relative to healthy controls. The data of 59 participants with PTSD and 62 healthy controls, collected from the BRID database, have been examined. Overall, our results indicate that PTSD patients overestimate the duration of the displayed stimuli. Moreover, we found that PTSD are more variable in the time estimation compared to the control group. Finally, we found evidence that working memory and attention impairments were associated with time overestimation in PTSD. The finding of time overestimation in PTSD accords with previous reports of time overestimation during stressful experiences associated with fear and arousal, but extends findings to suggest it remains in chronic PTSD populations processing non-emotional stimuli. The evidence of time overestimation in PTSD suggests the potential relevance of this factor as a cognitive marker in assessing the neuropsychological profile of this clinical population.

The Perception of Time Is Underestimated in Adolescents With Anorexia Nervosa

“…We anticipate that an overestimation response might be predicted in the timing performance of AN in the presence of food stimuli, in line with the evidence of temporal overestimation in response to negative, stressful/fearful outcomes and anxiety [e.g., Ref. ( 24 , 83 – 85 )]. The absence of measures to establish the temporal discounting response and the interoceptive awareness in our AN participants do not allow us to verify whether the reported temporal underestimation pattern is directly related with these measures, as it can be inferred from previous works in this field [e.g., Ref.…”

Psycholinguistic Markers of Autobiographical and Traumatic Memory

“…Therefore, getting stuck in time whilst describing a traumatic event has a poor impact on the length of traumatic narrative and spontaneous self-expression in terms of feelings and emotions. These results corroborate the findings of a great deal of the previous work in the strong relationship between PTSD and a poor temporal processing, notably time overestimation during stressful experience (Vicario & Felmingham, 2018).…”

Time Processing, Interoception, and Insula Activation: A Mini-Review on Clinical Disorders

“…Mioni et al 2016documented an under-reproduction of supra-second durations in this clinical population via time reproduction, which might indicate an overestimation in duration. Interestingly, an overestimation timing pattern was recently reported also in patients affected by post-traumatic stress disorder -PTSD (Vicario and Felmingham, 2018a).…”