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Time estimation during motor activity

Several studies on time estimation showed that the estimation of temporal intervals is related to the amount of attention devoted to time. This is explained by the scalar timing theory, which assumes that attention alters the number of pulses transferred by our internal clock to an accumulator that...

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Autores principales: D’Agostino, Ottavia, Castellotti, Serena, Del Viva, Maria Michela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10160443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37151903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1134027
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author D’Agostino, Ottavia
Castellotti, Serena
Del Viva, Maria Michela
author_facet D’Agostino, Ottavia
Castellotti, Serena
Del Viva, Maria Michela
author_sort D’Agostino, Ottavia
collection PubMed
description Several studies on time estimation showed that the estimation of temporal intervals is related to the amount of attention devoted to time. This is explained by the scalar timing theory, which assumes that attention alters the number of pulses transferred by our internal clock to an accumulator that keeps track of the elapsed time. In a previous study, it was found that time underestimation during cognitive-demanding tasks was more pronounced while walking than while sitting, whereas no clear motor-induced effects emerged without a concurrent cognitive task. What remains unclear then is the motor interference itself on time estimation. Here we aim to clarify how the estimation of time can be influenced by demanding motor mechanisms and how different motor activities interact with concurrent cognitive tasks during time estimation. To this purpose, we manipulated simultaneously the difficulty of the cognitive task (solving arithmetic operations) and the motor task. We used an automated body movement that should require no motor or mental effort, a more difficult movement that requires some motor control, and a highly demanding movement requiring motor coordination and attention. We compared the effects of these three types of walking on time estimation accuracy and uncertainty, arithmetic performance, and reaction times. Our findings confirm that time estimation is affected by the difficulty of the cognitive task whereas we did not find any evidence that time estimation changes with the complexity of our motor task, nor an interaction between walking and the concurrent cognitive tasks. We can conclude that walking, although highly demanding, does not have the same effects as other mental tasks on time estimation.
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spelling pubmed-101604432023-05-06 Time estimation during motor activity D’Agostino, Ottavia Castellotti, Serena Del Viva, Maria Michela Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Several studies on time estimation showed that the estimation of temporal intervals is related to the amount of attention devoted to time. This is explained by the scalar timing theory, which assumes that attention alters the number of pulses transferred by our internal clock to an accumulator that keeps track of the elapsed time. In a previous study, it was found that time underestimation during cognitive-demanding tasks was more pronounced while walking than while sitting, whereas no clear motor-induced effects emerged without a concurrent cognitive task. What remains unclear then is the motor interference itself on time estimation. Here we aim to clarify how the estimation of time can be influenced by demanding motor mechanisms and how different motor activities interact with concurrent cognitive tasks during time estimation. To this purpose, we manipulated simultaneously the difficulty of the cognitive task (solving arithmetic operations) and the motor task. We used an automated body movement that should require no motor or mental effort, a more difficult movement that requires some motor control, and a highly demanding movement requiring motor coordination and attention. We compared the effects of these three types of walking on time estimation accuracy and uncertainty, arithmetic performance, and reaction times. Our findings confirm that time estimation is affected by the difficulty of the cognitive task whereas we did not find any evidence that time estimation changes with the complexity of our motor task, nor an interaction between walking and the concurrent cognitive tasks. We can conclude that walking, although highly demanding, does not have the same effects as other mental tasks on time estimation. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-04-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10160443/ /pubmed/37151903 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1134027 Text en Copyright © 2023 D’Agostino, Castellotti and Del Viva. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
D’Agostino, Ottavia
Castellotti, Serena
Del Viva, Maria Michela
Time estimation during motor activity
title Time estimation during motor activity
title_full Time estimation during motor activity
title_fullStr Time estimation during motor activity
title_full_unstemmed Time estimation during motor activity
title_short Time estimation during motor activity
title_sort time estimation during motor activity
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10160443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37151903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1134027
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