Time perception is not for the faint-hearted? Physiological arousal does not influence duration categorisation

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Emotion-induced arousal changes can alter duration perception by modifying internal clock pace.
• It remains unclear if arousal changes from physical exercise also induce temporal distortions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of physically induced arousal on duration categorization.
• To determine if task delay, rather than arousal, causes temporal biases in duration perception.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: Participants completed a duration categorization task before and after heart-rate manipulation (increase, decrease, or no change).
• Experiment 2: Participants performed the duration task twice without delay or arousal manipulation.

Main Results:

• Duration overestimation occurred after heart-rate manipulation, regardless of the condition, suggesting arousal alone doesn't explain temporal bias.
• No overestimation was observed in Experiment 2, where no delay or arousal manipulation occurred.

Conclusions:

• Temporal distortions in delayed duration categorization tasks are likely caused by time lag distorting memorized durations.
• Physiological arousal changes from physical exercise do not appear to be the primary driver of these temporal biases.