Early Influence from Numerical Magnitude on Temporal Processing

• Main Authors: Acer Y.-C. Chang, 張宇瞻
• Other Authors: Denise H. Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/cepjkr

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 神經科學研究所 === 97 === One of crucial abilities in human is to represent and process magnitude information. Many previous studies provide a strong relationship between time and other magnitude dimensions such as space and numerosity. The aim of the thesis is to clarify whether the relationship between time and number is built before or after the response selection. In current study, the temporal reproduction task was employed in which the participants were instructed to reproduce the duration of a number. The result shows that the reproduced duration was longer when the presented number was larger. Interestingly, the numerical information still influenced the temporal processing, even though there was no need to perform the response selections By placing the number stimuli in reproduction phase, the behavior pattern was reversed. Such an effect observed in the reproduction task cannot be accounted for simply by the intuitive association between “small number and short time” and “large number and long time” at the response and/or decision stage rather the result implied the early influence on temporal processing. In the ERP studies, the temporal process, as indexed by the CNV amplitudes, were influenced simultaneously with the appearance of a number. Furthermore, the amplitude difference between small and large numbers increased over time, indicating the real-time influence of the numerical information on the temporal processing. To conclusion, the thesis provides the evidence of the early influence on temporal processing. Our results suggest time and quantity partly share a common representation or encoding mechanism.