Time Distortions by Emotions – TDE

As Gibbon reminds us (1977), time is the fourth dimension of life. Over a period of several decades, the few psychologists who have taken an interest in time have focused exclusively on demonstrating humans' abilities to estimate time accurately and on showing that these abilities are based on the functioning of a specific cerebral mechanism called the internal clock. However, studies in neurosciences have failed to find a simple brain structure responsible for the perception of time. The only structure that has been found to play a critical role in time perception is the caudate and the putamen of the dorsal striatum. In addition, the amygdala, whose the role in emotional processes has long been recognized, has been found to influence the dorsal striatum and the prefrontal cortex either directly or via dopaminergic structures. Finally, the judgment of time may be directly derived of emotions experienced and their effects on our brain. Although the internal clock models constitute the dominant models of time perception, the idea has begun to emerge over the last 4-5 years that time is not processed by a specific internal clock system occupying a specific location in the brain. Time may be an emergent property of the brain functioning and of emotional states experienced. In order to gain a better understanding of psychological time, we therefore decided to shift the focus of our investigations from humans abilities to estimate time accurately toward the time distortions produced by emotions. How, when, and why do humans have the feeling that the time has dilated or contracted under the effect of emotions? In other words “What emotions tells us about time?” (Droit-Volet & Gil, 2009). The study of time distortions by emotions does indeed represent a new way to progress further in the understanding of temporal judgments and to begin to reconsider the dominant models of the internal clock. Our purpose is thus to run 4 series of studies. The first is aimed to provide empirical support, which would allow us to validate a new theory of “grounded time” (Droit-Volet, In press). The idea behind grounded time is that temporal judgments are derived from sensory-motor and emotional states experienced or reenacted during interaction with environment, and in particular the social environment. The second series of research will address the effects of emotion on the perception of time and the underlying mechanisms, by investigating both the timing of emotional cues and the effect of emotional states per se on time perception. The third series of research will be run in a comparative perspective with human beings and animals and with participants presenting emotional disorders, i.e., anxiety and Huntington’s disease. Finally, as the internal clock models (Gibbon, 1977; Gibbon, Church & Meck, 1984) used to account for the perception of time in humans is directly derived from the models used to account for the perception of time in animals without any further investigation of the differences between animals and human beings, we will examine the role of humans' mental representations of time in the way time is evaluated. The fourth series studies will be thus on the metacognition of time and its impacts on our temporal judgments. In conclusion, our proposal on time distortions by emotions, within a comparative perspective, will allow us to further understand the specificity of time judgments in humans and thus to enable us to reconsider the mechanisms underlying the judgments of time. This will also allow us to elaborate a time metacognitive questionnaire for the detection of pathological distortions of the "sense of the passage of time" and the elaboration of new types of support which enable individuals to take more control over the unfolding of their lives and improve the way they manage their time.