Gallagher, S. 2012. Time, Emotion, and Depression
Shaun Gallagher2012
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Abstract
Abstract I examine several aspects of the experience of time in depression and in the experience of different emotions. Both phenomenological and experimental studies show that depressed subjects have a slowed experience of time flow and tend to overestimate time spans. In comparison to patients in control conditions, depressed patients tend to be preoccupied with past events, and less focused on present and future events.
Related papers
Time, Emotion, and Depression
Emotion Review, 2012
I examine several aspects of the experience of time in depression and in the experience of different emotions. Both phenomenological and experimental studies show that depressed subjects have a slowed experience of time flow and tend to overestimate time spans. In comparison to patients in control conditions, depressed patients tend to be preoccupied with past events, and less focused on
Time perception, depression and sadness
Behavioural Processes, 2009
This study examined changes in time perception as a function of depressive symptoms, assessed for each participant with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The participants performed a temporal bisection task in which they had to categorize a signal duration of between 400 and 1600 ms as either as short or long. The data showed that the bisection function was shifted toward the right, and that the point of subjective equality was higher in the depressive than in the non-depressive participants. Furthermore, the higher the depression score was, the shorter the signal duration was judged to be. In contrast, the sensitivity to time was similar in these two groups of participants. These results thus indicate that the probe durations were underestimated by the depressive participants. The sadness scores assessed by the Brief Mood Inventory Scale (BMIS) also suggest that the emotional state of sadness in the depressive participants goes some way to explaining their temporal performance. Statistical analyses and modeling of data support the idea according to which these results may be explained by a slowing down of the internal clock in the depressive participants.
The Phenomenology and Predictive Processing of Time in Depression
2020
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Varieties of Temporal Experience in Depression
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2012
People with depression often report alterations in their experience of time, a common complaint being that time has slowed down or stopped. In this paper, I argue that depression can involve a range of qualitatively different changes in the structure of temporal experience, some of which I proceed to describe. In addition, I suggest that current diagnostic categories such as ‘major depression’ are insensitive to the differences between these changes. I conclude by briefly considering whether the kinds of temporal experience associated with depression are specific to depression.
Disturbed Experience of Time in Depression-Evidence from Content Analysis
Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2018
Disturbances in the experience of time have been a commonly reported feature of depressive disorders since the beginning of modern psychiatry and psychological research. However, qualitative research approaches to investigate the phenomenon are rarely used. We employed content analysis to investigate disturbances of time experience in Major Depressive Disorder. Our analysis from 25 participants showed that individuals with Major Depressive Disorder subjectively seem to have lost the ability to influence or change the present, resulting in an impersonal and blocked future. The present is rendered meaningless, the past unchangeably negative, and the passage of time turned into a dragging, inexorable, and viscous continuance. The overall,-possibly intersubjective-concept of time experience, remains largely intact, causing or adding to depressive mood and suffering. We elaborate on how these findings reflect previous theories on the experience of time in depression. This study might enc...
Time Perception and Depressive Realism: Judgment Type, Psychophysical Functions and Bias
The effect of mild depression on time estimation and production was investigated. Participants made both magnitude estimation and magnitude production judgments for five time intervals (specified in seconds) from 3 sec to 65 sec. The parameters of the best fitting psychophysical function (power law exponent, intercept, and threshold) were determined individually for each participant in every condition. There were no significant effects of mood (high BDI, low BDI) or judgment (estimation, production) on the mean exponent, n = .98, 95% confidence interval (.96-1.04) or on the threshold. However, the intercept showed a 'depressive realism' effect, where high BDI participants had a smaller deviation from accuracy and a smaller difference between estimation and judgment than low BDI participants. Accuracy bias was assessed using three measures of accuracy: difference, defined as psychological time minus physical time, ratio, defined as psychological time divided by physical time, and a new logarithmic accuracy measure defined as ln (ratio). The ln (ratio) measure was shown to have approximately normal residuals when subjected to a mixed ANOVA with mood as a between groups explanatory factor and judgment and time category as repeated measures explanatory factors. The residuals of the other two accuracy measures flagrantly violated normality. The mixed ANOVAs of accuracy also showed a strong depressive realism effect, just like the intercepts of the psychophysical functions. There was also a strong negative correlation between estimation and production judgments. Taken together these findings support a clock model of time estimation, combined with additional cognitive mechanisms to account for the depressive realism effect. The findings also suggest strong methodological recommendations.
Intrinsic Temporality in Depression: Classical phenomenological psychiatry, affectivity and narrative
In Christian Tewes & Giovanna Stanghellini (eds.), Time and Body: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Approaches. Cambridge, UK: (forthcoming), 2020
Studies of depression indicate the existence of temporal abnormalities, particularly as related to the perspectival and agentive aspects of lived experience in persons who undergo depression. With reference to these anomalies, there is a long-standing view in phenomenological psychopathology, reinforced by empirical studies, that depression involves a disruption of “intrinsic temporality.” This view is widely incorporated into contemporary enactivist approaches to cognition, which link such a disruption to disorders involving affect, affordances, and narrative aspects of experience. We argue that classical phenomenological accounts of temporal abnormalities in depression do not warrant the supposition of a disruption to “intrinsic temporality,” and that this term itself is ambiguous. Instead, we understand depressive experience primarily in terms of affectivity, which does indeed feedback into the experience of lived time. Our view demonstrates a deeper consensus between phenomenological psychopathology and “4E” approaches, including work on both Gibsonian affordances and narrative, than is typically recognized.
Time perspective differences between depressed patients and non-depressed participants, and their relationships with depressive and anxiety symptoms
Journal of Affective Disorders, 2018
Time perspective differences between depressed patients and non-depressed participants, and their relationships with depressive and anxiety symptoms,
Temporality and psychopathology
The paper first introduces the concept of implicit and explicit temporality, referring to time as pre-reflectively lived vs. consciously experienced. Implicit time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative-affective dynamics of life on the other hand. Explicit time results from an interruption or negation of implicit time and unfolds itself in the dimensions of present, past and future. It is further shown that temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity are closely connected: While implicit temporality is characterised by tacit bodily functioning and by synchronisation with others, explicit temporality arises with states of desynchronisation, that is, of a retardation or acceleration of inner time in relation to external or social processes. These states often bring the body to awareness as an obstacle as well. On this basis, schizophrenia and melancholic depression are investigated as paradigm cases for a psychopathology of temporality. Major symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder, thought insertion, hallucinations or passivity experiences may be regarded as manifesting a disturbance of the constitutive synthesis of time consciousness, closely connected with a weakening of the underlying pre-reflective self-awareness or ipseity. This results in a fragmentation of the intentional arc, a loss of selfcoherence and the appearance of major self-disturbances. Depression, on the other hand, is mostly triggered by a desynchronisation from the social environment and further develops into an inhibition of the conative-affective dynamics of life. As will be shown, both mental illnesses bear witness of the close connection of temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity.
Questions of time and affect: a person's affectivity profile, time perspective, and well-being
PeerJ, 2016
Background. A "balanced" time perspective has been suggested to have a positive influence on well-being: a sentimental and positive view of the past (high Past Positive), a less pessimistic attitude toward the past (low Past Negative), the desire of experiencing pleasure with slight concern for future consequences (high Present Hedonistic), a less fatalistic and hopeless view of the future (low Present Fatalistic), and the ability to find reward in achieving specific long-term goals (high Future). We used the affective profiles model (i.e., combinations of individuals' experience of high/low positive/negative affectivity) to investigate differences between individuals in time perspective dimensions and to investigate if the influence of time perspective dimensions on well-being was moderated by the individual's type of profile. Method. Participants (N = 720) answered to the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory and two me...
Related papers
Tempus Non Fugit? Effects of Depression, Attention and Memory on Time Perception
There is consistent evidence that depressive state affects time perception, although the relevant mechanisms are unclear. We used three paradigms to investigate such effects. The first uses production and verbal estimation of time in seconds, controversial in other studies. There were no significant depression effects for psychophysical functions. The second uses operant learning, an innovation for humans. Depressed participants gave longer estimates than non depressed participants for intervals preceding a change in external contingencies. The third uses a modified staircase to find 75% discrimination thresholds for shorter (50ms) and longer (1000ms) intervals. Depressed people have worse discrimination for longer intervals only. These results suggest that neither long term memory for times in seconds nor internal clock speed are implicated in mood effects in time perception. Mood differences are more likely to be due to attention paid to external stimuli and contexts
Depression does not affect time perception and time-to-contact estimation
Frontiers in Psychology, 2014
Depressed patients frequently report a subjective slowing of the passage of time. However, experimental demonstrations of altered time perception in depressed patients are not conclusive. We added a timed action task (time-to-contact estimation, TTC) and compared this indirect time perception task to the more direct classical methods of verbal time estimation, time production, and time reproduction. In the TTC estimation task, the deviations of the estimates from the veridical values (relative errors) revealed no differences between depressed patients (N = 22) and healthy controls (N = 22). Neither did the relative errors of the TTC estimates differ between groups. There was a weak trend toward higher variability of the estimates in depressed patients but only at the shortest TTC and at the fastest velocities. Time experience (subjective flow of time) as well as time perception in terms of interval timing (verbal estimation, time production, time reproduction) performed on the same subjects likewise failed to produce effects of depression. We conclude that the notion that depression has a sizeable effect on time perception cannot be maintained.
Time experience and time judgment in major depression, mania and healthy subjects. A controlled study of 93 subjects
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 2004
The Effect of Mild Depression on Time Discrimination
Depressed mood states affect subjective perceptions of time but it is not clear whether this is due to changes in the underlying timing mechanisms, such as the speed of the internal clock. In order to study depression effects on time perception, two experiments using time discrimination methods with short ( < 300 ms) and long ( > 1000 ms) durations were conducted. Student participants who were categorised as mildly depressed by their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory were less able than controls to discriminate between two longer durations but were equally able to discriminate shorter intervals. The results suggest that mildly depressed or dysphoric mood do not affect pacemaker speed. It is more likely that depression affects the ability to maintain attention to elapsing duration.
How We Feel is a Matter of Time: Relationships Between Time Perspectives and Mood
Journal of Happiness Studies, 2013
Both personality and emotional experiences may be influenced by people's time perspectives. The Zimbardo time perspective inventory measures five trait dimensions related to past, present and future perspectives. Two studies were conducted to investigate how these time perspective dimensions related to mood. The first study (n = 260) confirmed that ZTPI scales predicted moods including energetic arousal, tense arousal and Hedonic Tone, revealing that past negative and Present Hedonistic time perspectives are the most robust predictors of current emotional states. Moreover, future time perspective proved to predict energetic arousal, but the effect was suppressed by present hedonism. The second study (n = 65) measured mood twice in a 4-week period, and focused on relationships between the ZTPI and recalled and anticipated mood. Analyses conducted using DBTP, an index of temporal harmony based on the ZTPI scores, proved that balanced time perspective was related to more positive mood states in both studies. Findings confirmed that time perspective appears to influence both recall and anticipation of mood. For example, past negative time perspective is associated with anticipation of negative moods, and Past Positive perspective relates to both recall and anticipation of energy. Time perspective may structure the individual's affective experience.
Time, Emotion and the Embodiment of Timing
Timing & Time Perception, 2013
The past few decades have seen an explosion in studies exploring the effects of emotion on time judgments. The aim of this review is to describe the results of these studies and to look at how they try to explain the time distortions produced by emotion. We begin by examining the findings on time judgments in affective disorders, which allow us to make a clear distinction between the feelings of time distortion that originate from introspection onto subjective personal experience, and the effects of emotion on the basic mechanisms involved in time perception. We then report the results of behavioral studies that have tested the effects of emotions on time perceptions and the temporal processing of different emotional stimuli (e.g. facial expressions, affective pictures or sounds). Finally, we describe our own studies of the embodiment of timing. Overall, the different results on time and emotion suggest that temporal distortions are an indicator of how our brain and body adapt to th...
Abnormal Subjective Time Experience in Depression
Abnormality of subjective time experienceis well recognisedin psychiatric illness. Earlierauthors suggested that slowedtimeexperience indepression isan aspect ofpsychomotor retardation, while more recently it hasbeenarguedthatthis disturbance isnon-specifically linked tothe globalseverityof the depressivesyndrome.This study offers evidencethat both views can be justified:slowedtime awarenessis a commonsymptomof depression, relatedparticularly toretardation, andtotheseverity ofthemood disturbance. Some oftheexperimental difficulties inthis kindofresearch areillustrated.
Insights into features of anxiety through multiple aspects of psychological time
Background: It is well-recognized that emotions and emotional disorders may alter the experience of time. Yet relatively little is known about different aspects of psychological time in relation to anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to explore several aspects of temporal processing, including time perspective, prospective and retrospective time estimation, in persons with anxiety symptoms. Methods: A total of 110 individuals with varying degrees of anxiety participated in two studies. They were assigned to two groups (anxiety–control) based on their scores on anxiety measurements. Participants also completed an inventory of time perspective and several time estimation tasks which were analyzed on a group-level. Depressive symptoms were assessed and used as a covariate in the second study. Results: Anxiety was significantly associated with Past Negative and Future Negative time perspectives as measured by the Swedish Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (S-ZTPI), even when controlling for the effect of depressive symptoms. No other significant differences were found. Conclusion: Exploring time perspective in persons with anxious symptoms may provide important insights into features of anxiety. These findings may offer new ways of conceptualizing anxiety and provide suggestions for treatment strategies. Keywords: Anxiety, depression, mental health, temporal processing, time assessment, time estimation, time perspective
Time-emotion paradox
The present manuscript discusses the time-emotion paradox in time psychology: although humans are able to accurately estimate time as if they possess a specific mechanism that allows them to measure time (i.e. an internal clock), their representations of time are easily distorted by the context. Indeed, our sense of time depends on intrinsic context, such as the emotional state, and on extrinsic context, such as the rhythm of others' activity. Existing studies on the relationships between emotion and time suggest that these contextual variations in subjective time do not result from the incorrect functioning of the internal clock but rather from the excellent ability of the internal clock to adapt to events in one's environment. Finally, the fact that we live and move in time and that everything, every act, takes more or less time has often been neglected. Thus, there is no unique, homogeneous time but instead multiple experiences of time. Our subjective temporal distortions directly reflect the way our brain and body adapt to these multiple time scales.
Time perception and time processing as an aspect of the therapeutic process
Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 1992
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