Presentation Information
[O1-01]Affective modulation of temporal binding using linguistic stimuli
*Felipe Toro Hernández1, Theresa Moraes Ramalho2, André Mascioli Cravo2, Peter M. E. Claessens2 (1. Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Cognition, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), São Paulo, Brazil (Brazil), 2. Center for Mathematics, Computing and Cognition, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), São Paulo, Brazil (Brazil))
Keywords:
Temporal binding,Sense of Agency,temporal cognition,psychophysics,cognitive-affective neuroscience
Temporal binding (TB)—the perceived shortening of time between a cause (event A) and its effect (event B)—is often associated with voluntary action. This temporal compression is typically stronger when the action is self-generated, making TB a widely used implicit marker of the sense of agency (SoA). Whereas explicit measures of SoA are usually sensitive to outcome valence (positive outcomes yield higher agency ratings than negative ones), implicit measures such as TB have produced less consistent findings. We examined whether emotional valence influences TB using a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) interval discrimination task in three experiments, varying the predictability of outcome valence. Emotional words (e.g., “joy,” “death,” “chair”) served as outcomes, categorized as positive, negative, or neutral. Relevant psycholinguistic variables were matched across valence groups using previous normatization studies for Brazilian Portuguese and two online surveys (N = 54). In Experiment 1 (N = 33), agency (active vs. passive) and word valence were fixed within blocks. In Experiment 2 (N = 40), valence was either fixed or varied across trials, depending on the block. Experiment 3 (N = 40) used only trial-wise variation in valence. Across all experiments, generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) replicated the TB effect: active trials were perceived as more temporally compressed than passive ones. However, outcome valence did not interact with agency in any of the experiments, suggesting no affective modulation of TB. These findings suggest that emotional valence alone may not be sufficient to influence implicit measures of agency, such as TB. Future research should investigate additional factors and methodologies to gain a deeper understanding of how emotion, agency, and time perception interact.