Slowing the body slows down time perception.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Motor Control
• Psychophysics

Background:

• Interval timing is crucial for action and influenced by movement.
• Previous research focused on self-paced movement, neglecting environmental impacts.
• Real-world scenarios often involve restricted or perturbed movement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how externally modulated movement, specifically viscosity, affects temporal perception.
• To determine if movement-induced temporal distortions stem from perceptual or decision-making processes.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed auditory interval timing tasks while moving a robotic arm.
• A robotic arm applied four random levels of viscosity to externally modulate movement.
• Drift-diffusion and Bayesian observer models were used for analysis.

Main Results:

• Higher levels of environmental viscosity led to significantly shorter perceived durations.
• Computational models confirmed that temporal biases originated from perceptual mechanisms.
• Decision-making processes were not found to be the primary source of the observed distortions.

Conclusions:

• Environmental perturbations, like viscosity, are significant factors in movement-related temporal distortions.
• External movement modulation directly impacts interval timing perception.
• This research advances understanding of the interplay between motor activity and cognitive functions like time perception.