The effect of Parkinson's disease on time estimation as a function of stimulus duration range and modality.

Full Abstract

The present research sought to investigate the role of the basal ganglia in timing of sub- and supra-second intervals via an examination of the ability of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) to make temporal judgments in two ranges, 100-500 ms, and 1-5 s. Eighteen non-demented medicated patients with PD were compared with 14 matched controls on a duration-bisection task in which participants were required to discriminate auditory and visual signal durations within each time range. Results showed that patients with PD exhibited more variable duration judgments across both signal modality and duration range than controls, although closer analyses confirmed a timing deficit in the longer duration range only. The findings presented here suggest the bisection procedure may be a useful tool in identifying timing impairments in PD and, more generally, reaffirm the hypothesised role of the basal ganglia in temporal perception at the level of the attentionally mediated internal clock as well as memory retrieval and/or decision-making processes.

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Author information

Author/s: Smith, Jared G (JG); Harper, David N (DN); Gittings, David (D); Abernethy, David (D);

Affiliation: School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Brain and cognition (Brain Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Jul; vol 64 (issue 2) : pp 130-43

Dates: Created 2007/06/19; Completed 2007/08/29;

PMID: 17343966, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Acoustic Stimulation
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Case-Control Studies
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Female
Humans
Judgment - physiology

Male
Matched-Pair Analysis
Middle Aged
Parkinson Disease - physiopathology
Photic Stimulation
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Time Perception - physiology

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