The Role of Time Perception in Depression

Abstract

Depression is a multi-faceted disorder which encompasses a diversity of neuropsychological and socio-behavioral factors, with depressed individuals tending to experience a distorted perception of time. Depressive individuals find time passes slowly and are preoccupied with the past. The cause(s) of such disturbance remains to be investigated, with the nature of past events in life hypothesized to be a probable potentiating factor. The hypoactivity of the brain’s basal ganglia region, which is related to decreased response to positive stimuli, hence emotional valence, may be associated with subjective slowness of time as perceived by depressed subjects. Time distortion appears more pronounced in studies of long interval than short interval ranges. Time perception has a consolidating role which oversees and links various neuropsychological and socio-behavioral aspects of an individual’s internal interactions with the external world, therefore affecting one’s prognosis in depression. It also has a modulatory and interfering influence on perceptual objectivity due to its high sensitivity to emotional valence.