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How Action Shapes Temporal Judgments: A Study in Brain Damaged Patients Through Immersive Virtual Reality
Greta Vianello1, Michela Candini2, Giuliana Vezzadini1
1Neurorehabilitation of the Institute of Castel Goffredo, Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS, 46042 Castel Goffredo, Italy.
Journal of Clinical Medicine
|July 29, 2025
Summary
Right brain damage impairs time perception, but this deficit lessens when judging meaningful actions in virtual reality. This suggests ecologically valid assessments are vital for understanding temporal processing deficits.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Virtual Reality Applications
Background:
- Accurate time perception is essential for daily functioning and environmental interaction.
- Right hemisphere damage (RHD) significantly alters temporal duration perception, often observed in abstract tasks.
- Previous research often overlooks real-world contexts for assessing time processing deficits.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate time interval estimation and reproduction in patients with left (LBD) and right brain damage (RBD) compared to controls.
- To compare time perception using traditional computerized tasks versus novel virtual reality (VR) scenarios.
- To explore the neurocognitive basis of time perception using Voxel-lesion-symptom-mapping (VLSM).
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Computerized tasks assessing time interval estimation and reproduction.
- Experiment 2: Novel VR tasks requiring participants to judge temporal duration of their own actions within realistic contexts.
- Voxel-lesion-symptom-mapping (VLSM) analysis to correlate lesion location with symptom severity.
Main Results:
- RBD patients, unlike LBD patients, significantly underestimated time intervals and reproduced them as longer.
- VR tasks, involving meaningful actions in realistic contexts, reduced the time processing impairment observed in RBD patients.
- VLSM analysis identified specific neurocognitive correlates for time perception deficits.
Conclusions:
- Meaningful actions within familiar contexts facilitate optimal time processing, even in individuals with brain damage.
- VR offers an ecologically valid method for assessing time processing, potentially revealing deficits missed by abstract tasks.
- The findings underscore the importance of context-dependent assessments for understanding temporal perception impairments.
