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Evaluation of time memory in acutely depressed patients, manic patients, and healthy controls using a time reproduction task

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

Richard Mahlberg ,
Thorsten Kienast ,
Tom Bschor  and
Mazda Adli
Richard Mahlberg*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychogerontology, Naegelsbachstr. 25, D-91052Erlangen, Germany Institute of Physiology, Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Arnimallee 22, D-14195Berlin, Germany
Thorsten Kienast
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, D-10117Berlin, Germany
Tom Bschor
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Jewish Hospital of Berlin, Heinz-Galinski-Strasse 1, D-13347Berlin, Germany
Mazda Adli
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, D-10117Berlin, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Institute of Psychogerontology, Naegelsbachstr. 25, D-91052 Erlangen, Germany.E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Mahlberg).
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Abstract

Patients with affective disorders have often been reported to experience subjective changes in how they perceive the flow of time. Time reproduction tasks provide information about the memory component of time perception and are thought to remain unaffected by pulse rate disturbances in the pacemaker of the internal clock.

In our study, 30 patients with acute depression, 30 patients with acute mania, and 30 healthy subjects of all age groups were presented with a time reproduction task. Participants were asked to observe a stimulus presented on a computer screen for a certain length of time and, subsequently, to reproduce the stimulus for a similar length of time by pressing the space bar on the computer keyboard. Stimuli were presented to each subject for 1, 6, and 37 s.

On average, the time intervals reproduced by manic patients were shorter than those reproduced by depressed patients. Manic patients reproduced the short time interval (6 s) correctly, but under-reproduced the long time interval (37 s, P < 0.001). Depressed patients correctly reproduced the long time interval, but over-reproduced the short time interval (P < 0.001).

Remembering time intervals as having been longer than they actually were may lead to a slowed experience of time, as has been described in depressed patients; precisely the converse seems to apply to manic patients.

Keywords

TimeReproduction taskMemoryAffective disorderDepressionMania
Type
Original article
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 23 , Issue 6 , September 2008 , pp. 430 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier Masson SAS 2008

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