Neural Pattern Change During Encoding of a Narrative Predicts Retrospective Duration Estimates

Abstract

What mechanisms support our ability to estimate durations on the order of minutes?Behavioral studies in humans have shown that changes in contextual features lead to overestimation of past durations. Based on evidence that the medial temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex represent contextual features, we related the degree of fMRI pattern change in these regions with people's subsequent duration estimates. After listening to a radio story in the scanner, participants were asked how much time had elapsed between pairs of clips from the story. Our ROI analysis found that the neural pattern distance between two clips at encoding was correlated with duration estimates in the right entorhinal cortex and right pars orbitalis. Moreover, a whole-brain searchlight analysis revealed a cluster spanning the right anterior temporal lobe. Our findings provide convergent support for the hypothesis that retrospective time judgments are driven by "drift" in contextual representations supported by these regions.

Retrospective time estimation following damage to the prefrontal cortex

“…Specific areas of the PFC play important roles in time estimation, but time estimation is likely supported by multiple brain regions rather than a single brain area causing an overestimation of a long interval (Ezzyat & Davachi, ; Jenkins & Ranganath, , ; Lositsky et al ., ; Polyn & Kahana, ). In the present study, we focused on the PFC as one of the main brain areas affecting time estimation of a long interval.…”

“…In a previous study, the time overestimation of MTL‐damaged patients rather than PFC‐damaged patients has been discussed from the viewpoint of an increase and reconstruction of segmentation based on memory impairment (Noulhiane et al ., ). In this study, MTL damage involvement in inaccuracy of time estimation was not clear, but both PFC and MTL have been reported to be involved in encoding and memory retention for contextual changes (Jenkins & Ranganath, ; Lositsky et al ., ). For each characteristic, unlike hippocampal damage, which would be expected to damage binding of context to items, damage to the PFC should impair the ability to maintain and update contexts in a flexible manner (Polyn & Kahana, ).…”

“…In this study, both discriminant analysis and linear multiple regression analysis revealed that right lateral PFC damage contributes to overestimation. Several studies suggest that the PFC is involved in contextual memory (Braver et al ., ; Ezzyat & Davachi, ; Jenkins & Ranganath, , ; Lositsky et al ., ; Polyn & Kahana, ), especially the right lateral PFC. This area may support contextual representation, convey information about temporal context (Jenkins & Ranganath, ), and help to segment ongoing experience into discrete episodes by continuously updating this integrated representation (Zacks, Speer, Swallow, Braver, & Reynolds, ).…”

“…Studies of brain activity using neuroimaging have reported that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the medial temporal lobes (MTLs) represent contextual features (Lositsky et al ., ; Polyn & Kahana, ). For example, the degree of activity pattern changes in the rostrolateral PFC during stimulus encoding predicted better memory (Jenkins & Ranganath, ).…”

Transcending time in the brain: How event memories are constructed from experience

“…Event boundaries can also modulate how we remember time itself, particularly by dilating subjective time duration. Items spanning boundaries tend to be remembered as happening farther apart in time, despite having the same true temporal distance (Ezzyat & Davachi, ; Lositsky et al, ). In a similar vein, the number and complexity of context changes (e.g., how elaborate ongoing changes in stimulus features are) have been shown to increase duration estimates for the entire length of recent events (Faber & Gennari, , ; Waldum & Sahakyan, ).…”