The Topographic Representation of Time and its Link with Temporal Context and Perception

The Topographic Representation of Time and its Link With Temporal Context and Perception

10.21203/rs.3.rs-753370/v2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shrikanth Kulashekhar ◽

Sarah Maass ◽

Hedderik van Rijn ◽

Domenica Bueti

Keyword(s):

Supplementary Motor Area ◽

High Spatial Resolution ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Temporal Context ◽

Subjective Time ◽

Human Participants ◽

The Brain ◽

Representation Of Time ◽

Perceived Duration

Abstract Neuronal tuning and topography are mechanisms widely used in the brain to represent sensory information and also abstract features like time. In humans, temporal topography has been shown in a wide circuit of brain regions. However, it is unclear whether chronotopic maps are specific to vision, whether they map time in an absolute or relative fashion, to what extent they reflect objective or subjective time and whether they are influenced by temporal context. Here we asked human participants to reproduce the durations of sounds in two, partially overlapping, temporal contexts while we record high-spatial resolution fMRI. Both model-based and data driven analyses show the presence of auditory chronomaps in the auditory parabelt, intraparietal sulcus, and in supplementary motor area. Most importantly, when the same physical duration is presented in different temporal contexts, and thus perceived differently, different neuronal units respond to it. Those units are also spatially shifted according to the relative position of the perceived duration within each context. Finally, the pattern of activity is more similar within rather than across contexts suggesting their pivotal role in shaping the maps. These results highlight two important properties of chronomaps: their flexibility of representation and their dependency on the context.

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The Topographic Representation of Time and its Link with Temporal Context and Perception

10.21203/rs.3.rs-753370/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shrikanth Kulashekhar ◽

Sarah Maass ◽

Hedderik Van Rijn ◽

Domenica Bueti

Keyword(s):

Supplementary Motor Area ◽

High Spatial Resolution ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Temporal Context ◽

Human Participants ◽

The Brain ◽

Representation Of Time ◽

Perceived Duration

Abstract Neuronal tuning and topography are mechanisms widely used in the brain to represent not only sensory information but also abstract features like numerosity and time. In humans, temporal topography has been shown recently in a wide circuit of brain regions, from lateral occipital to inferior parietal and premotor regions. However, it remains unclear whether chronotopic maps are specific to vision, whether they map time in an absolute or relative fashion, and to what extent they reflect objective or subjective, perceived time and whether they are influenced by temporal context. Here we asked human participants to reproduce the durations of sounds in two, partially overlapping, temporal contexts while we recorded high-spatial resolution fMRI. Both model-based and data driven analysis approaches show the presence of auditory chronomaps in the auditory parabelt, intraparietal sulcus, and in the supplementary motor area (SMA). Most importantly, when the same physical duration is presented in different temporal contexts, and thus perceived differently, different neuronal units respond to it. Those units were also spatially shifted on the cortical surface according to the relative position of the perceived duration within each context. Finally, voxels did not change their preferences across contexts and their pattern of activity was more similar within rather than across them, suggesting a pivotal role of the context in shaping the maps. These results highlight two important properties of human chronomaps: their flexibility of representation due to perception and their dependency on temporal context.

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Time and the implicit-explicit continuum

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x99262188 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 22 (5) ◽

pp. 758-759 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jill Boucher

Keyword(s):

Human Evolution ◽

Developmental Disorders ◽

Explicit Knowledge ◽

Propositional Attitude ◽

Implicit Knowledge ◽

Explicit Representation ◽

Temporal Context ◽

Target Article ◽

State Of Affairs ◽

Representation Of Time

Dienes & Perner's target article contains numerous but unsystematic references to the implicit or explicit knowledge of the temporal context of a known state of affairs such as may constitute the content of a propositional attitude. In this commentary, the forms of cognition that, according to D&P, require only implicit knowledge of time are contrasted with those for which explicit temporal knowledge is needed. It is suggested that the explicit representation of time may have been important in human evolution and that certain developmental disorders including autism may be (partly) caused by defective ability to represent time.

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