Duration processing in children as determined by time reproduction: implications for a few seconds temporal window

From research carried out over recent years using different experimental paradigms, it has become apparent that central information processing is temporally segmented into sequential units of a few seconds. This segmentation presumably reflects a neuronal process of temporal integration (TI) which automatically binds successive events into temporal units. Support for such TI comes, for example, from studies on temporal reproduction where standards up to approximately 2-3 s are reproduced veridically. Using this paradigm of temporal reproduction, we investigated the effect of normal cognitive development of sensory modality and of the range of presented standards on TI. Sixty children aged 6-7, 9-10 and 13-14 years reproduced visual or auditory standard durations ranged from 1 to 5.5 s or from 1 to 3 s. The results showed that durations of approximately 2 s were reproduced correctly, whereas those longer than 2.5 s were under-reproduced in the three age groups. For standards shorter than 2 s substantial age-related differences were revealed: the youngest group displayed significant over-reproduction comparing to older subjects. These observations indicate that the upper limit for TI is a stable feature across the different age groups. Furthermore an age-related modulation within the temporal window of the operating TI seems to be linked to cognitive development.