Citation

Merchant H, Zarco W, Prado L. J. Neurophysiol. 2008; 99(2): 939-949.

Affiliation

Departamento de Neurobiología Conductual y Cognitiva, Instituto de Neurobiología, Campus UNAM-UAQ, Juriquilla, Querétaro, Qro 76230, Mexico. merch006@umn.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, American Physiological Society)

DOI

10.1152/jn.01225.2007

PMID

18094101

Abstract

In the present study we examined the performance variability of a group of 13 subjects in eight different tasks that involved the processing of temporal intervals in the subsecond range. These tasks differed in their sensorimotor processing (S; perception vs. production), the modality of the stimuli used to define the intervals (M; auditory vs. visual), and the number of intervals (N; one or four). Different analytical techniques were used to determine the existence of a central or distributed timing mechanism across tasks. The results showed a linear increase in performance variability as a function of the interval duration in all tasks. However, this compliance of the scalar property of interval timing was accompanied by a strong effect of S, N, and M and the interaction between these variables on the subjects' temporal accuracy. Thus the performance variability was larger not only in perceptual tasks than that in motor-timing tasks, but also using visual rather than auditory stimuli, and decreased as a function of the number of intervals. These results suggest the existence of a partially overlapping distributed mechanism underlying the ability to quantify time in different contexts.

Language: en