Influence of Motor and Cognitive Tasks on Time Estimation

Abstract

The passing of time can be precisely measured by using clocks, whereas humans’ estimation of temporal durations is influenced by many physical, cognitive and contextual factors, which distort our internal clock. Although it has been shown that temporal estimation accuracy is impaired by non-temporal tasks performed at the same time, no studies have investigated how concurrent cognitive and motor tasks interfere with time estimation. Moreover, most experiments only tested time intervals of a few seconds. In the present study, participants were asked to perform cognitive tasks of different difficulties (look, read, solve simple and hard mathematical operations) and estimate durations of up to two minutes, while walking or sitting. The results show that if observers pay attention only to time without performing any other mental task, they tend to overestimate the durations. Meanwhile, the more difficult the concurrent task, the more they tend to underestimate the time. These distortions are even more pronounced when observers are walking. Estimation biases and uncertainties change differently with durations depending on the task, consistent with a fixed relative uncertainty. Our findings show that cognitive and motor systems interact non-linearly and interfere with time perception processes, suggesting that they all compete for the same resources.

Time estimation during motor activity

“…In our previous study, for the first time, we combined time estimation of long durations (up to 2 min), four different cognitive tasks of increasing difficulty, and two different motor conditions (Castellotti et al, 2022). Our results showed that, when participants were sitting on a chair (absence of motion), they tended to underestimate durations during cognitive-demanding tasks and overestimate durations while attending only to time [in line with the attentional allocation model (Grondin, 2010;Allman et al, 2014;Matthews and Meck, 2016)].…”

“…For example, Ebersbach et al (1995) investigated the effect of different tasks (cognitive, fine motor, and combined tasks) on walking, finding that only combined mental and fine motor demands interfere with the regulation of balance during walking, suggesting that the effect of a concurrent task on gross body movements depended on the difficulty of the secondary task. On the other end, walking and balance control reduce cognitive abilities, such as solving math operations (Chong et al, 2010;Castellotti et al, 2022).…”

“…A wide range of research involving dual task paradigms demonstrated a shortening of perceived time with the increasing of the concurrent task difficulty (Brown, 1985;Zakay and Tsal, 1989;Rammsayer and Ulrich, 2005;Castellotti et al, 2022); indeed, as theorized by the attention allocation model, paying attention only to time induces temporal overestimation, whereas diverting attention away from time causes time underestimation, with a positive relationship with the difficulty level of the concurrent nontemporal tasks [ (Burnside, 1971;Thomas and Weaver, 1975;Macar et al, 1994), for reviews, see (Block et al, 2010;Gu et al, 2015)].…”

On the Nature of the Interplay of Perception, Action, and Cognition

“…Similar motor-induced visual distortions of space, time, and numerosity have also been reported during saccadic eye movement [7]. Finally, time perception is even altered during walking [8] or running [9], generalizing the sensorimotor interactions to many different motor effectors as well as to different motor routines. In brief, the internal representation of the external world can be considered an active combination of perceptual and motor information.…”

Vestibular Stimulation Causes Contraction of Subjective Time

“…Could the effects be attributed to the engagement of the motor system with or without negligible vestibular contribution? In a recent study, Castellotti et al ( 2022 ) found that a secondary cognitive task led to an underestimation of a given time interval between 15 and 120 s. This could be an attention effect. Walking on a treadmill, as opposed to sitting while solving arithmetic tasks, led to even more pronounced underestimation.…”