Interoceptive focus shapes the experience of time.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology of Time Perception

Background:

• Time perception is integral to human experience.
• Emerging research links subjective time to emotional and interoceptive (bodily) states processed in the insular cortex.
• The interplay between conscious interoceptive awareness and emotion-induced time distortions remains under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the interaction between conscious awareness of interoceptive states and emotion-induced time distortions.
• To determine if attention to bodily states influences subjective time estimation during emotional experiences.

Main Methods:

• Employed a retrospective time estimation task with two participant groups.
• One group focused on interoceptive states, the other on exteroceptive information.
• Participants viewed film clips with fear, amusement, and neutral emotional content.

Main Results:

• Attention to interoceptive processes significantly impacted subjective time experience.
• Fear induced time dilation, more pronounced with interoceptive focus.
• Amusement led to a faster passage of time, also enhanced by interoceptive focus.

Conclusions:

• Retrospective temporal distortions are directly influenced by attention to bodily responses.
• These effects may interact with arousal levels and sympathetic nervous system activation.
• Interoception plays a crucial role in how emotional states affect subjective time perception.