The Role of the Motor system in the Perception of Time

这个项目将调查运动系统在人们感知时间的过程中所扮演的角色。对时间的感知是我们有意识体验的基础，也是我们几乎所有活动的关键。然而，尽管时间知觉自19世纪以来一直是实验心理学研究的焦点，但人们对时间知觉的理解仍然不完全。以前的研究表明，大脑控制着我们行动的时机，而运动系统只是对这些定时的大脑命令做出反应。也就是说，大脑决定何时移动，运动系统产生运动。然而，最近的研究表明，马达系统可能在计时中起着更为关键的作用，可能是感知时间所必需的。研究人员将通过让人类参与者移动一只可以被实验者干扰的机械臂来测试这一想法。研究人员将探索改变机械臂运动的特征是否也会改变受试者对时间的感知，以及这种范式是否可以用来改善对时间的感知。该研究计划结合了决策和运动规划文献的各个方面，并将为这两个研究领域的研究生和本科生提供新的培训。最后，了解时间和运动对脑机接口和神经假体的发展至关重要，并可能有助于支持运动康复和运动障碍的干预。在大多数关于人类时间知觉的心理学研究中，受试者通常必须通过按下按钮在两种选择中做出选择。这与大多数动物研究形成鲜明对比，在大多数动物研究中，动物必须移动到反应地点。研究人员打算用所提出的范式弥合这两个文献之间的差距。要做到这一点，受试者将被要求将机械臂移动到不同的位置，这取决于他们对经过的时间间隔的决定。一系列研究将测试1)在受试者主动计时间隔时增加手臂阻力的效果，2)在计时间隔时主动移动与计划移动时的效果，以及3)在判断其他时间关键刺激(例如音调)时移动的影响。在所有研究中，研究人员将使用运动运动学和动力学来预测受试者将做出的选择，并将应用漂移-扩散模拟来阐明运动参数在哪里以及如何影响对时间的感知。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will investigate the role of the motor system in how people perceive time. The perception of time is fundamental to our conscious experience and critical to virtually all of our activities. However, despite being a focus of research in experimental psychology since the 19th century, time perception is still incompletely understood. Previous work has suggested that the brain controls the timing of our actions and the motor system simply produces an output in response to these timed brain commands. That is, the brain decides when to move and the motor system produces the movement. However, recent research has shown that the motor system may have a much more critical role in timing and may be fundamentally necessary for the perception of time. The investigators will test this idea by having human participants move a robotic arm that can be perturbed by the experimenters. The investigators will explore whether changing the features of the robotic arm movement also alters the subject's perception of time and whether this paradigm can be used to improve the perception of time. The research program combines aspects of the decision-making and motor planning literatures and will provide novel training for graduate and undergraduate students in the two research areas. Finally, understanding timing and movements is critical to the development of brain-machine interfaces and neural prosthetics and may help support interventions in motor rehabilitation and motor disorders. In most psychological research on time perception in humans, subjects must typically make a choice between two alternatives by pressing a button. This stands in contrast to most animal research, where animals must move to a response location. The investigators intend to bridge the gap between these two literatures with the proposed paradigm. To do this, subjects will be required to move a robotic arm to different locations, depending on their decision about an elapsed interval of time. A series of studies will test the effects of 1) adding resistance to the arm while subjects actively time an interval, 2) actively moving vs. planning a movement while timing an interval, and 3) the impact of moving while judging other, time-critical stimuli (e.g., pitch). In all studies, the investigators will use movement kinematics and dynamics to predict the choices subjects will make and will apply drift-diffusion modeling simulations to elucidate where and how movement parameters impact the perception of time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.