Citation

Getzmann S, Arnau S, Gajewski PD, Wascher E. Eur. J. Neurosci. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/ejn.15553

PMID

34859527

Abstract

Attentional models of time perception assume that the perceived duration of a stimulus depends on the extent to which attentional resources are allocated to its temporal information. Here, we studied the effects of auditory distraction on time perception, using a combined attentional-distraction duration-discrimination paradigm. Participants were confronted with a random sequence of long and short tone stimuli, most of which having a uniform (standard) pitch and only a few a different (deviant) pitch. As observed in previous studies, pitch-deviant tones impaired the discrimination of tone duration and triggered a sequence of event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting a cycle of deviance detection, involuntary attentional distraction, and reorientation (MMN, P3a, RON). Contrasting ERPs of short and long tone durations revealed that long tones elicited a more pronounced fronto-central contingent negative variation (CNV) in the time interval after the expected offset of the short tone as well as a more prominent centro-parietal late positive complex (LPC). Relative to standard-pitch tones, deviant-pitch tones especially impaired the correct discrimination of long tones, which was associated with a reduction of the CNV and LPC. These results are interpreted within the theoretical framework of resource-based models of time perception, in which involuntary distraction due to a deviant event led to a withdrawal of attentional resources from the processing of time information.

Language: en

Keywords

Attentional Resources; Auditory Distraction; Duration Discrimination; Event-Related Potentials; Time Perception