Systematic underreproduction of time is independent of judgment certainty

Abstract

We recently proposed that systematic underreproduction of time is caused by a general judgment bias towards earlier responses, instead of reflecting a genuine misperception of temporal intervals. Here we tested whether this bias can be explained by the uncertainty associated with temporal judgments.We applied transcranialmagnetic stimulation (TMS) to inhibit neuronal processes in the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and tested its effects on time discrimination and reproduction tasks. The results show increased certainty for discriminative time judgments after PPC inhibition.They suggest that the right PPC plays an inhibitory role for time perception, possibly by mediating themultisensory integration between temporal stimuli and other quantities. Importantly, this increased judgment certainty had no influence on the degree of temporal underreproduction.We conclude that the systematic underreproduction of time is not caused by uncertainty for temporal judgments.