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. 2017 Feb 14:8:176.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00176. eCollection 2017.

Emotion and Implicit Timing: The Arousal Effect

Sylvie Droit-Volet  1 , Mickaël Berthon  1
Affiliations

Emotion and Implicit Timing: The Arousal Effect

Sylvie Droit-Volet et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

This study tested the effects of emotion on implicit time judgment. The participants did not receive any overt temporal instructions. They were simply trained to respond as quickly as possible after a response signal, which was separated from a warning signal by a reference temporal interval. In the testing phase, the inter-signal interval was shorter, equal or longer than the reference interval and was filled by emotional pictures (EP) of different arousal levels: high, moderate, and low. The results showed a U-shaped curve of reaction time plotted against the interval duration, indicating an implicit processing of time. However, this RT-curve was shifted toward the left, with a significantly lower peak time for the high-arousal than for the low-arousal EP. This emotional time distortion in an implicit timing task suggests an automatic effect of emotion on the internal clock rate.

Keywords: emotion; implicit timing; time; timing.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Mean reaction time (RT) plotted against the probe interval durations for the High-Arousal group with the High-Arousal (HA-EP), the Low-Arousal (LA-EP) emotional pictures and the no-emotional pictures (No-EP), and for the Moderate-Arousal group with the Moderate-Arousal (MA-EP), the Low-Arousal (LA-EP) emotional pictures and the no-emotional pictures (No-EP).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Peak time of the U-shaped RT curve for the High-Arousal and the Moderate-Arousal group with the High-Arousal/Moderate-Arousal emotional pictures, the Low-Arousal emotional pictures, and the no-emotional pictures.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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