Die Neuropsychologie der Zeit – Kognitive und emotionale Modulatoren der zeitlichen Erfahrung

Abstract

Over the last decades, empirical work in time perception research has mainly focused on internal clock models but the field is now undergoing transformations. More recently, a growing body of evidence has shown that the experience of time is not encapsulated, rather, time perception influences, and is influenced by, emotional and cognitive states. Here, I will show that temporal processes are indeed tightly coupled to cognitive and emotional processes. For this, I will discuss the relations between human perception of time and both psychological well-being and cognitive abilities within current psychological and neurobiological theories of temporal processing. Specifically, the focus will be on a wide range of time experiences together with the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying these experiences. A more precise description of these mechanisms would find clinical applications in neurology and psychiatry. The perception of duration and that of temporal order evolve on different time scales and human time experiences range from milliseconds to decades. What are the relations between such time scales of time experience and human experiences whether in an everyday setting or a clinical one? Here, I will propose that the experience of time is in fact an indicator of cognitive and emotional states.