Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks
Our perception of time varies with the degree of cognitive engagement in tasks. The perceived passage of time accelerates while working on demanding tasks, whereas time appears to drag during boring situations. Our experiment aimed at investigating whether this relationship is mutual: Can manipulate...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2021-02-01
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| Series: | NeuroImage |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920310867 |
| _version_ | 1819203363514875904 |
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| author | Sven Thönes Stefan Arnau Edmund Wascher Daniel Schneider |
| author_facet | Sven Thönes Stefan Arnau Edmund Wascher Daniel Schneider |
| author_sort | Sven Thönes |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Our perception of time varies with the degree of cognitive engagement in tasks. The perceived passage of time accelerates while working on demanding tasks, whereas time appears to drag during boring situations. Our experiment aimed at investigating whether this relationship is mutual: Can manipulated announcements of elapsed time systematically affect the attentional resources applied to a cognitive task? We measured behavioral performance and the EEG in a whole report working memory paradigm with six items of different colors that each had to be reported after a short delay period. The 32 participants were informed about the current time after each 20 trials, while the clock was running at either 100% (normal), 120% (fast), or 80% (slow) of normal clock speed depending on the experimental block. The mean number of correctly reported colors per trial was significantly increased in the fast as compared to the slow and normal clock conditions. In the EEG, we focused on neural oscillations during working memory encoding and storage. As an electrophysiological correlate of task engagement, frontal theta power during the storage interval was increased in the fast clock condition. Also, the power of frontal theta oscillations predicted the number of correctly reported colors on a single-trial basis. This shows that a covert manipulation of clock speed can lead to an improvement in cognitive performance, presumably mediated by a higher allocation of attentional resources resulting from an adaptation of the subjective passage of time during an experiment. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-23T04:18:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0ac143a33c074bcc9d3c0df806758dc7 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1095-9572 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-23T04:18:44Z |
| publishDate | 2021-02-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage |
| spelling | doaj.art-0ac143a33c074bcc9d3c0df806758dc72022-12-21T18:00:18ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722021-02-01226117601Boosting working memory with accelerated clocksSven Thönes0Stefan Arnau1Edmund Wascher2Daniel Schneider3Experimental Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany; Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, GermanyLeibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, GermanyLeibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, GermanyLeibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany; Corresponding author.Our perception of time varies with the degree of cognitive engagement in tasks. The perceived passage of time accelerates while working on demanding tasks, whereas time appears to drag during boring situations. Our experiment aimed at investigating whether this relationship is mutual: Can manipulated announcements of elapsed time systematically affect the attentional resources applied to a cognitive task? We measured behavioral performance and the EEG in a whole report working memory paradigm with six items of different colors that each had to be reported after a short delay period. The 32 participants were informed about the current time after each 20 trials, while the clock was running at either 100% (normal), 120% (fast), or 80% (slow) of normal clock speed depending on the experimental block. The mean number of correctly reported colors per trial was significantly increased in the fast as compared to the slow and normal clock conditions. In the EEG, we focused on neural oscillations during working memory encoding and storage. As an electrophysiological correlate of task engagement, frontal theta power during the storage interval was increased in the fast clock condition. Also, the power of frontal theta oscillations predicted the number of correctly reported colors on a single-trial basis. This shows that a covert manipulation of clock speed can lead to an improvement in cognitive performance, presumably mediated by a higher allocation of attentional resources resulting from an adaptation of the subjective passage of time during an experiment.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920310867Time perceptionSubjective timepassageWorking memoryTask engagementPosterior alphaFrontal theta |
| spellingShingle | Sven Thönes Stefan Arnau Edmund Wascher Daniel Schneider Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks NeuroImage Time perception Subjective timepassage Working memory Task engagement Posterior alpha Frontal theta |
| title | Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks |
| title_full | Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks |
| title_fullStr | Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks |
| title_short | Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks |
| title_sort | boosting working memory with accelerated clocks |
| topic | Time perception Subjective timepassage Working memory Task engagement Posterior alpha Frontal theta |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920310867 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sventhones boostingworkingmemorywithacceleratedclocks AT stefanarnau boostingworkingmemorywithacceleratedclocks AT edmundwascher boostingworkingmemorywithacceleratedclocks AT danielschneider boostingworkingmemorywithacceleratedclocks |