Social distancing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought several modifications in our daily lives. With these changes, some people have reported alterations in their feelings of how fast time was passing. In this study, we assessed whether and how social distancing and the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced participants’ time awareness and production of time intervals. Participants ( n = 3855) filled in the first questionnaire approximately 60 days after the start of social distancing in Brazil and weekly questionnaires for 15 weeks during social distancing. Our results indicate that time was perceived as expanded at the beginning, but this feeling decreased across the weeks. Time awareness was strongly associated with psychological factors such as loneliness, stress, and positive emotions, but not with time production. This relation was shown between participants and within their longitudinal reports. Together, our findings show how emotions are a crucial aspect of how time is felt.

20Spatial attention can modulate behavioural performance and is associated with several electrophysiological 21 markers. In this study, we used multivariate pattern analysis in electrophysiology data to investigate the effects 22 of covert spatial attention on the quality of stimulus processing and underlying mechanisms. Our results show 23 that covert spatial attention led to (i) an anticipatory alpha power desynchronization; (ii) enhanced stimuli 24 identity information. Moreover, we found that alpha power fluctuations in anticipation of the relevant stimuli 25 boosted and prolonged the coding of stimulus identity. 26Keywords: spatial attention, alpha oscillations, multivariate pattern analysis, EEG 27 2/15 28 Attention is essential to select and process sensory stimuli in the environment. One of the main difficulties in 29 studying attentional selection in humans is assessing the quality of processing of attended and ignored stimuli. 30 In general, measures such as the amplitude of electrophysiological evoked responses (i.e. N1, P1) have been 31 used as a reflection of this processing. However, a recent study has questioned this view since the amplitude 32 of the evoked response was not correlated with a boost in the target representation. 1 . Moreover, how well the 33 unattended stimulus is processed is particularly hard to assess, given that participants are typically asked not 34 to respond to these events. 35One possibility is to use methods which evaluate neural processing without necessarily requiring a 36 behavioural response. Recent studies have relied on multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) techniques to 37 analyze EEG/MEG responses. [2][3][4] . In general, these methods are based on the theoretical basis that the 38 MEG/EEG signal reflects coupled dipoles activity of neural circuitry. Although the specific dipole activity 39 may not be identified, their summation would result in different patterns of activity across MEG/EEG 40 sensors 2-4 . These MVPA methods have been increasingly used to understand the effects of attention and its 41 underlying mechanisms. Several studies have shown that spatial attention modulates stimulus representation 42 in working memory 5-7 and sensory information input 8 . Moreover, temporal attention seems to enhance 43 relevant sensory information input, creating a temporal protection window against distractors 1 , and boosting 44 its representational content. 45Another pre-activating mechanism commonly described in the literature of spatial attention is the mod-46 ulations in the spectral characteristics of the alpha (8-16 Hz) band 9 . This oscillatory activity is associated 47 with cognitive functions such as visual attention 10 , working memory 11 and cognitive load 12 . For example, 48 anticipatory lateralized desynchronisation of alpha power is correlated with spatial expectations of a rel-49 evant upcoming stimuli in a particular hemifield 10, 13 . Studies suggest that alpha oscillations can play a 50 role in information processing by suppressing the activi...

Spatial attention can modulate behavioural performance and is associated with several electrophysiological markers. In this study, we used multivariate pattern analysis in electrophysiology data to investigate the effects of covert spatial attention on the quality of stimulus processing and underlying mechanisms. Our results show that covert spatial attention led to (i) an anticipatory alpha power desynchronization; (ii) enhanced stimuli identity information. Moreover, we found that alpha power fluctuations in anticipation of the relevant stimuli boosted and prolonged the coding of stimulus identity.

Humans' and non-human animals' ability to process time on the scale of milliseconds and seconds is essential for adaptive behaviour. A central question of how brains keep track of time is how specific temporal information across different sensory modalities is. In the present study, we show that encoding of temporal intervals in auditory and visual modalities are qualitatively similar. Human participants were instructed to reproduce intervals in the range from 750 ms to 1500 ms marked by auditory or visual stimuli. Our behavioural results suggest that, although participants were more accurate in reproducing intervals marked by auditory stimuli, there was a strong correlation in performance between modalities. Using multivariate pattern analysis in scalp EEG, we show that activity during late periods of the intervals was similar within and between modalities. Critically, we show that a multivariate pattern classifier was able to accurately predict the elapsed interval, even when trained on an interval marked by a stimulus of a different sensory modality. Taken together, our results suggest that, while there are differences in the processing of intervals marked by auditory and visual stimuli, they also share a common neural representation.

Monitoring and updating temporal predictions are critical abilities for adaptive behavior. Here, we investigated whether neural oscillations are related to violation and updating of temporal predictions. Human participants performed an experiment in which they had to generate a target at an expected time point, by pressing a button while taking into account a variable delay between the act and the stimulus occurrence. Our behavioral results showed that participants quickly adapted their temporal predictions in face of an error. Concurrent electrophysiological (EEG) data showed that temporal errors elicited markers that are classically related to error coding. Furthermore, intertrial phase coherence of frontal theta oscillations was modulated by error magnitude, possibly indexing the degree of surprise. Finally, we found that delta phase at stimulus onset was correlated with future behavioral adjustments. Together, our findings suggest that low frequency oscillations play a key role in monitoring and in updating temporal predictions.