Time Perception as a Complex Functional System: Neuropsychological Approach

Abstract

Ninety-two brain-damaged patients and 111 normal control subjects were tested on their orientation to date; sequencing of events; discrimination of simultaneity and succession; conditioning to time; comparison, production and reproduction of durations; conservation of velocity in clocks; construction of time units; and psychological time. Temporal disorientation was related to advanced age, low educational level, amnesia, dementia and limbic or diffuse brain lesions. Only multifocal-diffuse lesions accompanied by dementia could disintegrate the concept of metric time, while sparing psychological time, discrimination of durations and sequencing of canonically recurring events. Reproduction of durations and verbally mediated temporal conditioning were impaired in frontal and temporal-limbic lesions, which left intact the concept of time. The results support the hypothesis that temporal perception is accomplished by a complex functional system, regarding both its psychological structure and cerebral organization.

Key Words:

• time perception
• chronognosia
• neuropsychological tests
• neurofunctional network
• cognition
• dementia