Matell, Meck and Nicolelis [2] demonstrated that neurons in the dorsal-anterior striatum of rats 'peak' in their firing rates at the same time as maximal lever pressing during a timing task; both patterns coincide with the criterion duration.
To determine if time is calibrated differentially as a function of perceived animate or inanimate context, here we used interference paradigms in which a timing task was run concurrently with the presentation of different computer-graphics characters in the background.
Participants completed four types of temporal task; verbal estimation and temporal generalisation, a retrospective timing task and a passage of time judgement task.
Finally, our reaction time task was actually an anticipation timing task, as subjects were familiarized with the time frame in which the response had to be performed.
In the present study, only those trials in which the timing of perception of the intention to move (Task A), timing of recognition of the answer (Task B), and timing of the perception of fatigue (Task C) were within the temporal window of −300 to 0 ms from the onset of the button-press were included in analyses.
A motor timing task was administered, in which children had to produce a 1,000 ms interval.
These authors suggested that the difference between the results of their two studies could have reflected the use of an immediate timing task (the fixed-interval peak procedure) in the latter experiment, as opposed to the retrospective timing tasks used in the earlier one [15].
This finding is the first to find such associations with a sub-second timing task.
The timing task served as a probe to reveal potential biases or distortions of time induced by the characters.
Moreover, the enhancement of Fos expression in the ventral striatum seen following exposure to retrospective timing schedules was not seen following exposure to light intensity discrimination schedules based on the same discrete-trials choice contingencies as the timing tasks [11].
