Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewHow movements shape the perception of time
Section snippets
Time and movement are intertwined
Continuous interaction with a dynamic world requires organisms to make precise temporal measurements of sensory input and directed motor output. As such, sensorimotor coupling is vital in multiple levels of organization in the nervous system, from spinal reflexes to complex motor sequences [1]. These intertwined sensorimotor processes have potential implications in the study of time perception [2]; however, the link between action and time perception has, until recently [3], been relatively
Motor systems are invoked during time perception
Given the necessity of time and movement in everyday interactions, it is not surprising that the brain areas involved in these processes greatly overlap (Figure 1A). Timing relies on several brain systems traditionally thought to be dedicated to motor control [5,6], and that are activated during timing tasks where no overtly timed motor response is required (Figure 1A). The main cortical area implicated in temporal processing is the supplementary motor area (SMA). The SMA is often split into
Concurrent movements bias time perception
Despite the involvement of motor regions in time perception, until recently movements were not specifically studied in the context of timing. Models of time perception typically set movements to represent the end-point of a timed process, with motor variance existing as a nuisance to be partialed out (Box 1). Yet, early evidence of this relationship came in the form of the chronostasis phenomenon, wherein saccading to a target induced a stereotyped expansion of visual time [30]. Post-action
Concurrent movements improve time perception
In addition to the work cited above showing the biasing effects of movement, there is also evidence that concurrent movements can enhance timing (Figure 3). This secondary finding is an essential component of Bayesian cue combination, in which greater precision leads to greater bias.
In one study [56], subjects were more precise timing auditory intervals when the stimulus onset was determined by the subject (Figure 3B). Further studies [57] found that subjects were more precise timing auditory
Pre-action and post-action effects on timing
In addition to the effects of concurrent action, there are also distinct effects on perceived duration during pre-action and post-action periods, yet with notable inconsistencies. For pre-action periods, in some cases durations are compressed [77., 78., 79.] and in others dilated [29,80,81]. Various factors lead to these differential effects, including whether the temporal stimulus is a filled interval or an empty interval [29,81] as well as the intended direction of a planned movement [79].
It
A framework for movement and time
As described above, movement effects on explicit time estimates, both perceived and produced, can lead to both biases and enhancements under particular conditions. Additionally, these effects are predicted using a Bayesian cue combination framework (Box 2). Yet, cue combination has traditionally been formulated as one in which disparate channels of sensory information are combined to a unified percept. In our framework, movement itself serves as an additional channel for duration information.
Neural implementation
If Bayesian cue combination can explain movement-related effects on time, then how are these effects implemented in the brain? We outline two possibilities (Figure 4D, Key figure). First, as described above, motor structures predominate neural timing systems, and so one possibility is that movements lead to changes within these motor circuits themselves, most notably the SMA, possibly by sharpening duration or category-tuned neurons, which are driven by sensory and motor responses, or by
Concluding remarks
In this review we have introduced a basic framework of how movement information can bias timing while improving its precision, from the overlap of neural systems to behavioral correlates. We note that this area of study is in its early stages: most movement-timing studies have examined effects of brief [53], discrete [30], or ballistic movements [80], and have tightly controlled motor variables of interest in laboratory settings. Naturally, these come with some limitations. The multi-effector
Acknowledgments
The two first authors (RD & KAG) contributed equally to this work. Funding to support this work was provided by the National Science Foundation (Award # 1849067 to MW & WMJ and #1922598 to KAG). This work was also supported in part by the National Institute Of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (Award T32MH112507).
Declaration of Interests
No interests are declared.
Glossary
- Accuracy
- refers to the closeness of measurements to a particular value and can be seen as the correctness of measurements.
- Chronostasis
- a temporal illusion in which the perceived duration of an event or interval is dilated immediately following a saccade (i.e., quick eye movement). Has also been shown to occur with other types of actions (i.e., arm movements) and with various types of stimuli (i.e., visual, auditory).
- Empty intervals
- time intervals presented as the difference between two brief
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Lost in time: Relocating the perception of duration outside the brain
2023, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsAudition controls the flow of visual time during multisensory perception
2022, iScienceCitation Excerpt :Here we provide strong complementary evidence that audition, the more temporally precise modality, controls the flow of time in vision, the more temporally predictive modality. This raises important mechanistic and phenomenological questions about neural computational time versus experienced time, not only across sensory modalities but in sensorimotor time as well (De Kock et al., 2021). In view of the current findings, we posit that as the speech stream changes pace, the visual modality realigns its pace according to the auditory modality to reassume a leading position.