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Updated: May 14, 2026

Eye Movements in Visual Duration Perception: Disentangling Stimulus from Time in Predecisional Processes
Published on: January 19, 2024
Processing of time within the prefrontal cortex: recent time engages posterior areas whereas distant time engages
Gilly Koritzky1, Qinghua He, Gui Xue
1Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, CA 90089-2520, USA. koritzky@usc.edu
Abstract:
Studies of prefrontal cortex (PFC) lesion patients suggest that information conveying high immediacy, certainty, or tangibility engages the more posterior part of the PFC, whereas information that is more abstract or complex engages the anterior part. We examined whether the anterior and posterior subdivisions of the PFC have distinct roles in processing temporal information during decision making in healthy individuals. We hypothesized that the more the locus of activation is in the posterior (as opposed to anterior) PFC, the more the decision maker will be affected by recent information at the expense of past outcomes. Participants performed a complex decision task while their PFC activity was monitored using fMRI. Results indicate that individual differences in the effect of recent outcomes correspond to differences in the locus of activation, with elevated recency associated with more posterior loci of activation.
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