The heart as a subjective pacemaker: how experienced time expands and contracts within each heartbeat

Abstract

The experience of time is highly subjective. When we stare at the hands of a clock, a minute can feel much longer than when we are swept in a fun activity. Salient changes in external milieu (e.g., fluctuations in the visual scene) as well as in emotional states (e.g., arousal) have all been postulated to influence duration perception and the experience of time. Here, we focus on the role of cardiac signals, that provide a continuous background to all information processing. To study the causal influence of cardiac signals on duration perception, we presented timed stimuli either during the systolic phase of the cardiac cycle, when baroreceptors are firing signals to the brain, or during the diastolic phase, when baroreceptors are quiescent. Time perception was quantified with a temporal bisection task. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were an emotionally neutral visual image or an auditory beep, while in Experiment 2 we modulated the emotional content of the stimuli by asking participants to judge the duration of fearful and happy faces. We also measured participants subjective valence and arousal ratings as well as their ability to track their own heartbeats. For neutral and low arousal stimuli, stimulus presentation at systole led to a subjective temporal contraction, while diastolic trials led to temporal expansion. Like an accordion that contracts and expands time within each heartbeat. Importantly, inducing heightened arousal broke down that cardiac balance. Our results document how phasic interoceptive signals from the heart shape time perception.

Wrinkles in subsecond time perception are synchronized to the heart

“…Therefore, "more" of the external world is sensed, mimicking the effect of attention or stimulus intensity on lengthening perceived duration (Matthews & Meck, 2016). 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).…”

“…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.…”

Wrinkles in subsecond time perception are synchronized to the heart

“…Therefore, "more" of the external world is sensed, mimicking the effect of attention or stimulus intensity on lengthening perceived duration (Matthews & Meck, 2016). 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 lower heart rate.…”

Individual differences in seated resting heart rate are associated with multisensory perceptual function in older adults

“…Indeed, RHR is inherently defined by its temporality and there was a large range of RHR values in this sample (40.50-123.50 bpm; difference of 83 bpm). For example, in addition to sensory processing (Galvez-Pol et al, 2020;Pramme et al, 2014Pramme et al, , 2016Sandman et al, 1977), the perception of stimulus duration, which can influence temporal audio-visual integration (Boenke et al, 2009), may fluctuate across the systolic and diastolic phases of the cardiac cycle (Arslanova et al, 2022), the frequency of which is influenced by HR (Skora et al, 2022). These factors are important to consider given evidence that susceptibility to the SIFI is known to be influenced by individual differences in the audio-visual TBW, which characterizes the temporal precision of multisensory perception (Stevenson et al, 2012).…”

“…Several studies reporting links between cardiovascular activity and sensory processing have indicated a key role of stretch-responsive aortic and carotid baroreceptors, which respond to fluctuations in HR and pulsatile pressure and are active during the systolic phase and quiescent during the diastolic phase of the cardiac cycle (Azzalini et al, 2019;Skora et al, 2022). Signals discharged by the baroreceptors relay information on the timing and strength of heartbeats to the brainstem to maintain cardiac homeostasis but continue to the cortex where they are thought to increase levels of cortical inhibition and modulate sensory intake (Lacey & Lacey, 1970;Pramme et al, 2014Pramme et al, , 2016Sandman, 1984;Sandman et al, 1977;Walker & Sandman, 1982) as well as the broader perception of time (Arslanova et al, 2022). While a fast HR is associated with reduced visual detection (McCanne & Sandman, 1974;Sandman et al, 1977) and visual discrimination (Lojowska et al, 2015), a fast HR is also associated with increased atherosclerosis in aging (Chen et al, 2017;Whelton et al, 2013).…”