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This study includes a design that combines Depth Relaxation Music Therapy (DRMT)/Hypnomusictherapy (HMT), silence, and nature. Participants (n = 84) were divided into seven groups and first received 16 min of DRMT/HMT followed by 6:30 min of silence or a 16-min seminar focusing on silence in therapy and counselling succeeded by 6:30 min of silence. In the seminar, the subjects were invited to participate in a moderated group discussion and to communicate their experiences and ideas concerning silence in health-related settings. Each group then experienced the other condition (within-subject design) with one week in between. The overall process was conducted in the natural setting of a city garden. The aim of the study was to compare the effects of a 6:30-min silence following either a group discussion on silence (university seminar) or a session of DRMT in a natural setting. Participants in the DRMT/HMT condition relatively overestimated the duration of silence and felt that time had passed more slowly as compared to silence following the seminar. Relaxation was significantly increased both after silence following DRMT/HMT and silence following the seminar, a probable effect of exposure to nature. Within the DRMT/HMT-study arm, participants who were more relaxed also felt themselves more intensely, experienced space to a lesser extent, and felt that time had passed more quickly. In conclusion, both silent conditions in nature fostered relaxation. These study conditions combining silence, nature, and DRMT/HMT proved to be effective as a group music therapy method and should be further explored.

While the contingent negative variation (CNV) has been the subject of extensive research over the last fifty years, the maximum duration during which such cortical negativity can be maintained has, to the best of our knowledge, never been systematically explored. Participants were presented with the classic S1–S2 paradigm task, where a warning stimulus (S1) acts as a cue for the appearance of an imperative stimulus (S2). A fast motor response was required upon S2 arrival. Inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) of 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 s duration were presented in blocked fashion. Data was analysed using both EEG referenced to linked mastoids and the current source density (CSD) technique, which maximizes the cortical origin of the measured voltage. Mean late CNV (lCNV) amplitude was found to be significantly higher for fast reaction time (RT) trials when CSD data was split according to the median into ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ RT halves. Post-hoc comparisons showed that this RT effect was particularly strong for the 10 s condition. This may be explained by the lack of an lCNV component and thus of cortical negativity prior to S2 in the 10 s condition. Our results suggest that intervals of a duration between 7.5 and 10 s represent the upper boundary during which the lCNV component can be elicited.

The Necker-Zeno model of bistable perception provides a formal relation between the average duration of meta-stable percepts (dwell times T ) of ambiguous figures and two other basic time scales ( t 0 , ΔT ) underlying cognitive processing. The model predicts that dwell times T covary with t 0 , ΔT or both. We tested this prediction by exploiting that observers, in particular experienced meditators, can volitionally control dwell times T . Meditators and non-meditators observed bistable Necker cubes either passively or tried to hold their current percept. The latencies of a centro-parietal event-related potential (CPP) were recorded as a physiological correlate of t 0 . Dwell times T and the CPP latencies, correlated with t 0 , differed between conditions and observer groups, while ΔT remained constant in the range predicted by the model. The covariation of CPP latencies and dwell times, as well as their quadratic functional dependence extends previous psychophysical confirmation of the Necker-Zeno model to psychophysiological measures.

Background Cocaine use disorders (CUDs) have been associated with increased risk-taking behavior. Neuroimaging studies have suggested that altered activity in reward and decision-making circuitry may underlie cocaine users’ heightened risk-taking. It remains unclear if this behavior is driven by greater reward salience, lack of appreciation of danger, or another deficit in risk-related processing. Methods Twenty-nine CUD participants and 40 healthy comparison participants completed the Risky Gains Task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. During the Risky Gains Task, participants choose between a safe option for a small, guaranteed monetary reward and risky options with larger rewards but also the chance to lose money. Frequency of risky choice overall and following a win versus a loss were compared. Neural activity during the decision and outcome phases was examined using linear mixed effects models. Results Although the groups did not differ in overall risk-taking frequency, the CUD group chose a risky option more often following a loss. Neuroimaging analyses revealed that the comparison group showed increasing activity in the bilateral ventral striatum as they chose higher value, risky options, but the CUD group failed to show this increase. During the outcome phase, the CUD group showed a greater decrease in bilateral striatal activity relative to the comparison group when losing the large amount, and this response was correlated with risk-taking frequency after a loss. Conclusions The brains of CUD individuals are hypersensitive to losses, leading to increased risk-taking behaviors, and this may help explain why these individuals take drugs despite aversive outcomes.

The readiness potential is an ongoing negativity in the EEG preceding a self-initiated movement by approximately 1.5 s. So far it has predominantly been interpreted as a preparatory signal with a causal link to the upcoming movement. Here a different hypothesis is suggested which we call the selective slow cortical potential sampling hypothesis. In this review of recent research results we argue that the initiation of a voluntary action is more likely during negative fluctuations of the slow cortical potential and that the sampling and averaging of many trials leads to the observed negativity. That is, empirical evidence indicates that the early readiness potential is not a neural correlate of preconscious motor preparation and thus a determinant of action. Our hypothesis thereafter challenges the classic interpretation of the Libet experiment which is often taken as proof that there is no free will. We furthermore suggest that slow cortical potentials are related to an urge to act but are not a neural indicator of the decision process of action initiation.

Only a few studies have investigated the sense of time in experienced meditators. In the current case–control study, we investigated whether 20 practitioners in transcendental meditation (TM) showed differences in the perception of time as compared to 20 matched controls. Perception of time was assessed with a battery of psychophysical tasks including duration reproduction and time estimation tasks in the milliseconds-to-minutes range as well as with psychometric instruments related to subjective time and assessments concerning the subjective passage of time. Attentional capacities were measured with the Attention Network Test. Trait-mindfulness was assessed with the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory. Results indicate that the TM meditators performed more consistently in the duration reproduction tasks in the multiple seconds' range and responded more accurately in the time estimation tasks in the minutes' range as well as in the duration discrimination task than controls. Self-rated mindfulness was more pronounced in meditators, while attentional capacities did not differ. In conclusion, experts in TM performed more accurately in psychophysical time perception tasks and had higher mindfulness than non-meditating controls. Whether these differences are causally related to the practice of meditation should be investigated in future studies.

Empirical findings in the Cognitive Sciences on the relationship between feeling states and subjective time have led to the assumption that time perception entails emotional and interoceptive states. The perception of time would thereafter be embodied; the bodily self, the continuous input from the body is the functional anchor of phenomenal experience and the mental self. Subjective time emerges through the existence of the self across time as an enduring and embodied entity. This relation is prominently disclosed in studies on altered states of consciousness such as in meditative states, under the influence of hallucinogens as well as in many psychiatric and neurological conditions. An increased awareness of oneself coincides with an increased awareness of time. Conversely, a decreased awareness of the self is associated with diminished awareness of time. The body of empirical work within different conceptual frameworks on the intricate relationship between self and time is presented and discussed.

The objective of this correlational study was to investigate how dispositional mindfulness is related to the experience of time as operationalized by the assessment of the time perspectives, impulsiveness, and duration judgment tasks. A sample of students (N = 63) completed self-report measures of mindfulness (FMI, CHIME), the time perspectives (ZTPI), impulsiveness (BIS), conducted psychophysical tasks of (a) auditory duration discrimination in the milliseconds range, (b) visual duration reproduction in the multiple-second range, and performed an attention task, the Attention Network Test. Being more mindful in daily life was related to less impulsiveness, better emotional handling of the past, and a more pronounced future perspective. Mindfulness was also related to more accurate timing in the milliseconds and multiple-seconds range but not to attentional control. These findings suggest a close association between dispositional mindfulness with the temporal organization of behaviour and the perception of time.

The belief in free will has been frequently challenged since Benjamin Libet published his famous experiment in 1983. Although Libet’s experiment is highly dependent upon subjective reports, no study has been conducted that focused on a first-person or introspective perspective of the task. We took a neurophenomenological approach in an N = 1 study providing reliable and valid measures of the first-person perspective in conjunction with brain dynamics. We found that a larger readiness potential (RP) is attributable to more frequent occurrences of self-initiated movements during negative deflections of the slow cortical potentials (SCP). These negative deflections occur in parallel with an inner impulse reported by an expert meditator which may in turn lead to a voluntary act. We demonstrate in this proof-of-principle approach that the first-person perspective obtained by an expert meditator in conjunction with neural signal analysis can contribute to our understanding of the neural underpinnings of voluntary acts.

Exposure to psychological stress during combat can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Anticipation of aversive events is often associated with an intense emotional state in individuals with PTSD. Both the valence (i.e., positive or negative) of the anticipated event and the degree of temporal predictability (i.e., one's ability to predict when an event will occur) have profound effects on an individual's emotional experience. This investigation tested the hypothesis that individuals with combat-related PTSD would show increased activation in the insula and related emotion-processing circuitry when anticipating emotionally significant events such as portrayed in combat-related images, and this heighted response within the insula would be particularly enhanced during temporal unpredictability.About 15 male veterans with PTSD and 15 male veterans with combat-exposure but no current or lifetime history of PTSD (combat exposed controls/CEC) performed a temporal unpredictability anticipation task of unpleasant (combat-related) and pleasant images during fMRI.As expected, greater activation in the bilateral anterior insulae was observed in the PTSD versus the CEC subjects during anticipation of combat-related images when the anticipatory period was of uncertain duration (p0.05). Furthermore, activation in the right anterior insula was related to greater perceived threat in the CEC group (ρ=0.619).The current study looks only at combat-related PTSD in a modest preliminary sized sample.These findings suggest that an excessive anticipatory reaction in individuals with PTSD to temporally unpredictable aversive stimulus may relate to greater perceived threat. These findings are concordant with psychological models of PTSD that focus on the association of PTSD with the experience of decreased predictability and control.

The experience of the present moment is characterized by an integrative mechanism that fuses successive events into a unitary phenomenological experience with a temporal limit of about 3 s. We hypothesized that proficiency of mindfulness expands the ability to stabilize an ambiguous percept in a bistable image paradigm using the Necker Cube, and that this effect is associated with individual differences in the level of mindfulness. Expanded duration of nowness as indicated by the ability to stabilize a bistable image stimulus for a longer period of time may improve cognitive resources and thus be of practical interest. In a sample of n = 38 meditators and n = 38 non-meditators, meditators showed longer duration of subjective nowness. This effect was associated with individual mindfulness levels. It is concluded that the subjective now can be longer for meditators than for non-meditators, and individual levels of mindfulness may convey this effect.

Several studies provide empirical evidence for the association between impulsivity and time perception. However, little is known about the neural substrates underlying this function. This investigation examined the influence of impulsivity on neural activation patterns during the encoding and reproduction of intervals with durations of 3, 9 and 18 seconds using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Twenty-seven subjects participated in this study, including 15 high impulsive subjects that were classified based on their self-rating. FMRI activation during the duration reproduction task was correlated with measures of two self-report questionnaires related to the concept of impulsivity (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, BIS; Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, ZTPI). Behaviorally, those individuals who under-reproduced temporal intervals also showed lower scores on the ZTPI future perspective subscale and higher scores on the BIS. FMRI activation revealed an accumulating pattern of neural activity peaking at the end of the 9- and 18-s interval within right posterior insula. Activations of brain regions during the reproduction phase of the timing task, such as those related to motor execution as well as to the ‘core control network’ – encompassing the inferior frontal and medial frontal cortex, the anterior insula as well as the inferior parietal cortex – were significantly correlated with reproduced duration, as well as with BIS and ZTPI subscales. In particular, the greater activation in these regions the shorter were the reproduced intervals, the more impulsive was an individual and the less pronounced the future perspective. Activation in the core control network, thus, may form a biological marker for cognitive time management and for impulsiveness.

Recent research suggests that our sense of time intervals in the range of seconds is directly related to activity in the insular cortex, which contains the primary sensory area for interoception. We therefore investigated whether performance in a duration reproduction task might correlate with individual interoceptive awareness and with measurable changes in autonomic activity during the task. Thirty-one healthy volunteers participated in an interoceptive (heartbeat) perception task and in repeated temporal reproduction trials using intervals of 8, 14, and 20s duration while skin conductance levels and cardiac and respiratory periods were recorded. We observed progressive increases in cardiac periods and decreases in skin conductance level during the encoding and (less reliably) the reproduction of these intervals. Notably, individuals' duration reproduction accuracy correlated positively both with the slope of cardiac slowing during the encoding intervals and with individual heartbeat perception scores. These results support the view that autonomic function and interoceptive awareness underpin our perception of time intervals in the range of seconds.

In experimental studies using flight simulations subjects' duration estimates have shown to be an effective indicator of cognitive task demands. In this study we wanted to find out whether subjective time perception could serve as a measure of cognitive workload during simulated car driving. Participants drove on a round course of a driving simulator consisting of three different environments with different levels of task demands. Drivers were required to perform a time-production task while driving the vehicle. Electrodermal activity and subjective ratings of mental workload (SWAT) were recorded simultaneously. The length of produced intervals increased significantly in more complex driving situations, as did electrodermal activity and subjective ratings of mental workload. Thus, time production is a valid indicator of cognitive involvement in simulated driving and could become a valid method to measure the current mental workload of car drivers in various traffic situations.

Individual differences in personality traits such as impulsivity and trait anger as well as environmental variables have an impact on aggressiveness. We tested a model incorporating the related variables of impulsiveness, trait anger, and aggression and incorporated the possible mediating influences of leisure-time activities. Regression analyses of data from 1129 pre-adolescents and 1093 adolescents (55.4% females) from a study evaluating the Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire (AQ; Santisteban, Alvarado, & Recio, 2007) showed a relation between impulsiveness (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale) and aggression (AQ). Trait anger (Spielberger’s State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory), the time spent watching TV and playing video games, and the time spent doing homework (all related to impulsiveness) also are related to physical, as well as verbal aggression (with low to moderate coefficients). Multiple mediation analyses confirm that media violence exposure and homework, respectively, can have aggravating and attenuating effects on self-reported aggression. These results provide key variables for longitudinal studies which could reveal the causal nature of the results found with our cross-sectional design.

Background Behavioral processes and neural systems dysfunctions that put individuals at risk for drug use in general, and stimulant use in particular, are poorly understood. Here, the hypothesis is examined that stimulant-using subjects adjust their decision making less as a function of errors as evidenced by attenuated behavioral and neural substrate activation patterns. Methods Twelve young adults who had used stimulants were compared with 12 education-matched, stimulant-naive comparison subjects. Subjects completed the two-choice prediction task with three fixed error-rate conditions (20%, 50%, or 80% errors) during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results Stimulant users relative to comparison subjects showed less strategy adjustment to different error rates, for example, they were less likely to stay with winning responses (win-stay) and to shift away from losing responses (lose-shift). These subjects also showed different activation patterns as a function of error rate in left insular and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex but not anterior cingulate. The degree to which individuals adjusted switching rate, or win-stay/lose-shift consistent responses, as a function of errors was correlated with the difference in insular cortex activation differences between high and low error rates. Conclusions The behavior of stimulant users is less adaptive to the frequency of errors made and fewer brain processing resources are deployed during decision making to anticipate erroneous performance. These findings could be markers for the predisposition of drug taking; however, their relevance for development of drug dependence requires further study.

Standard diagnostic procedures for assessing temporal-processing abilities of adult patients with aphasia have so far not been developed. In our study, temporal-order measurements were conducted using two different experimental procedures to identify a suitable measure for clinical studies. Additionally, phoneme-discrimination abilities were tested on the word, as well as on the sentence level, as a relationship between temporal processing and phoneme-discrimination abilities is assumed. Patients with aphasia displayed significantly higher temporal-order thresholds than control subjects. The detection of an association between temporal processing and speech processing, however, depended on the stimuli and the phoneme-discrimination tasks used. Our results also suggest top-down feedback on phonemic processing.

To determine the relative safety of onboard display positions while driving, participants performed a lane-keeping task in a driving simulator. Concurrently, they reacted to a light by pushing the brake pedal. A secondary task was projected onto a display at one of the seven different locations in the cockpit. Behavioral data, eye movements, and subjective rating scales showed that the manipulation of display information during driving disturbed drivers' performance exponentially as a function of distance between the line of sight to the outside primary task and the onboard display position. Vertical eccentricity had a greater detrimental effect than horizontal distance. Under a certain condition with a high secondary task load, reaction time of pushing the brake to the outside stimulus nearly doubled with a diagonal eccentricity of 35 degrees as compared to lower eccentricities. Subjective workload measures complement the behavioral data of clear detrimental effects with eccentricities of at least 35 degrees .

Two distinct conceptualisations of processing mechanisms have been proposed in the research on the perception of temporal order, one that assumes a central-timing mechanism that is involved in the detection of temporal order independent of modality and stimulus type, another one assuming feature-specific mechanisms that are dependent on stimulus properties. In the present study, four different temporal-order judgement tasks were compared to test these two conceptualisations, that is, to determine whether common processes underlie temporal-order thresholds over different modalities and stimulus types or whether distinct processes are related to each task. Measurements varied regarding modality (visual and auditory) and stimulus properties (auditory modality: clicks and tones; visual modality: colour and position). Results indicate that the click and the tone paradigm, as well as the colour and position paradigm, correlate with each other. Besides these intra-modal relationships, cross-modal correlations show dependencies between the click, the colour and the position tasks. Both processing mechanisms seem to influence the detection of temporal order. While two different tones are integrated and processed by a more independent, possibly feature-specific mechanism, a more central, modality-independent timing mechanism contributes to the click, colour and position condition.

Personal reports from experienced meditators exist on how subjective time slows down in meditation practice as well as in everyday life. However, hardly any empirical work exists regarding this exceptional experience. In discussing cognitive and neural models of time perception, I want to show how the subjective passage of time and the perception of duration are modified by functional states of mindfulness, i.e., by attention regulation, body awareness, and emotion regulation. Results of two empirical studies will be presented: (1) in a cross-sectional study with students, we investigated how dispositional mindfulness is related to the experience of time. Being more mindful in daily life was related to less impulsiveness, better emotional handling of the past, and a more pronounced future perspective. Mindfulness was also related to more accurate timing in the milliseconds and multiple-seconds range but not to attentional control. (2) In a further cross-sectional study, we investigated whether experienced mindfulness meditation practitioners showed different time perception than matched controls. Overall, the reported findings suggest a close association between mindfulness, the temporal organization of behavior, i.e. more pronounced freedom from time constraints, and the perception of time.

Temporal aspects of motor control were investigated in patients with infarction to the brain with two finger-tapping tests. In the self-paced tapping task patients with cortical left-hemispheric lesions were slowed down and patients with left-hemispheric subcortical injuries were consistently faster as compared with control subjects and patients with right hemispheric cortical lesions. The results point to the dominant control of the left-hemisphere in voluntarily timed action and to a special time range of 250–300 ms involved in motor behaviour.

When a voluntary action causes a sensory outcome, actions and their subsequent effects are perceived as being closer together in time, this effect being called intentional binding. Since studies on perceived time are highly dependent on subjective reports, an avenue to gain more reliable subjective reports regarding the precise moment of a temporal event is to work with experienced meditators. It has been shown in many studies that experienced meditators are able to keep attention more consistently on a task and they have increased attentional control and report more accurately their body sensations. In this study, we performed an intentional binding paradigm with twenty experienced meditators and compared the results with matched controls. Moreover, the pre-supplementary area (SMA) is regarded as key structure for voluntary movement and contributing to the sense of agency. For example, it has been shown that disrupting neural activity in the SMA leads to less intentional binding. Therefore, brain dynamic (EEG) was recorded and a single-trial analysis technique of the task was performed to estimate whether intentional binding is correlated with spontaneous slow cortical potentials (SCP). We observed that self-initiated movements following positive and negative potential shifts of SCPs in meditators, which are related to SMA activation, have different effects on intentional binding, especially the error regarding timing of sensory outcome rises. The difference between groups in timing accuracy and its correlate of brain dynamics will be discussed in detail.