Brain and Cognition 83 (2013) 45–51

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Brain and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/b&c

Prospective and retrospective time perception are related to mental time

travel: Evidence from Alzheimer’s disease
Mohamad El Haj a,⇑, Christine Moroni a, Séverine Samson a, Luciano Fasotti b,d, Philippe Allain c,e
a
Neuropsychology and Auditory Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Lille 3, France
b
Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
c
LUNAM Université, Université d’Angers, Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire, Angers, France
d
Rehabilitation Medical Centre Groot Klimmendaal, SIZA Support and Rehabilitation, Arnhem, The Netherlands
e
Centre Mémoire de Ressources et de Recherches, CHU Angers, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Unlike prospective time perception paradigms, in which participants are aware that they have to esti-
Accepted 21 June 2013 mate forthcoming time, little is known about retrospective time perception in normal aging and Alz-
Available online 18 July 2013 heimer’s disease (AD). Our paper addresses this shortcoming by comparing prospective and
retrospective time estimation in younger adults, older adults, and AD patients. In four prospective
Keywords: tasks (lasting 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, or 120 s) participants were asked to read a series of numbers and to pro-
Alzheimer’s disease vide a verbal estimation of the reading time. In four other retrospective tasks, they were not informed
Mental time travel
about time judgment until they were asked to provide a verbal estimation of four elapsed time inter-
Prospective time perception
Retrospective time perception
vals (lasting 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, or 120 s). AD participants gave shorter verbal time estimations than older
adults and younger participants did, suggesting that time is perceived to pass quickly in these patients.
For all participants, the duration of the retrospective tasks was underestimated as compared to the
prospective tasks and both estimations were shorter than the real time interval. Prospective time esti-
mation was further correlated with mental time travel, as measured with the Remember/Know para-
digm. Mental time travel was even higher correlated with retrospective time estimation. Our findings
shed light on the relationship between time perception and the ability to mentally project oneself into
time, two skills contributing to human memory functioning. Finally, time perception deficits, as
observed in AD patients, can be interpreted in terms of dramatic changes occurring in frontal lobes
and hippocampus.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) exhibit great deviations
from true clock time, as they tend to show significant alterations in
the judgment of time intervals (Nichelli, Venneri, Molinari, Tavani,
& Grafman, 1993). Several investigations have provided support for
this idea (Carrasco, Guillem, & Redolat, 2000; Caselli, Iaboli, & Nich-
elli, 2009; Nichelli et al., 1993; Papagno, Allegra, & Cardaci, 2004;
Rueda & Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2009). However, all these studies
have been concerned by one facet of time perception, namely, pro-
spective time perception.
In prospective time perception measures, participants are in-
structed in advance that they have to estimate time intervals. In
retrospective measures, on the contrary, they are not. Prospective
and retrospective timing are thought to be related to different pro-
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Neuropsychology and Auditory Cognition,
Department of Psychology, University of Lille 3, Domaine Universitaire du Pont
de Bois, BP 60149, 59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France. Fax: +33 3 20 41 63 24.
E-mail address: mohamad.elhaj@univ-lille3.fr (M. El Haj).
cesses: the first to timing mechanisms, the second to general cog-
nitive mechanisms not specifically related to time, such as memory
(Block, 2003). The common feature between retrospective timing
and memory may lie in mental time travel. Mental time travel,
or the ability to mentally project oneself backward in time to relive
past experiences, is the mean feature of autonoetic consciousness
characterizing episodic recall (Tulving, 2002; Wheeler, Stuss, &
Tulving, 1997). Autonoetic consciousness, or mental time travel,
is described as a sense of a subjective experience of time, and
according to Tulving’s (2002) quote ‘‘no sense of subjective time,
no mental time travel’’ (p. 2). According to this assumption mental
time travel, allowing episodic recall, is likely to be heavily relying
on retrospective time perception, or the subjective experience of
the past.
Research on time perception is mainly concerned by prospec-
tive timing and only a few papers have focused on retrospective
timing in normal aging (Block, Zakay, & Hancock, 1998), and this
absence of studies on retrospective timing is even more striking
in AD. A typical measure of prospective time perception in AD
has been described by Rueda et al. (2009). These authors asked

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2013.06.008
46 M. El Haj et al. / Brain and Cognition 83 (2013) 45–51
17 AD patients and 17 older adults to give a verbal estimation of
four time intervals: 10 s, 25 s, 45 s or 60 s. During each interval,
the participants had to read aloud series of numbers that appeared
on a computer screen. At the end of each interval, they had to an-
swer the question ‘‘How long did that trial last?’’ by providing a
verbal estimation in seconds. This procedure showed significant
differences between the AD patients and the older adults, with re-
gard to the absolute error measure as well as to the degree to
which estimations deviate from true clock time.
In the described procedures, participants were aware that they
had to estimate time. This kind of prospective task is widely used
in investigations of time perception in AD (Carrasco et al., 2000;
Caselli et al., 2009; Nichelli et al., 1993; Papagno et al., 2004).
Broadly speaking, the focus on prospective timing is characterizing
all the studies on time perception (Block, 2003). Our work is aimed
at closing this gap of studies assessing retrospective time percep-
tion in normal aging and AD. However, before outlining our objec-
tives, it is of interest to shed light on the neuroanatomical basis of
time perception.
Clinical reports suggest a key role of the frontal lobes in the
processing of temporal information. Binkofski and Block (1996)
described a patient with a left frontal tumor overproducing long
duration >60 s. Koch, Oliveri, Carlesimo, and Caltagirone (2002)
described the case of a patient with a right prefrontal lesion
underestimating long duration. Another case of a patient with
bilateral frontal lobe abnormalities was reported by Wiener and
Coslett (2008). This patient underproduced and overestimated
long duration. Although these studies report contradictory find-
ings, they highlight the implication of frontal areas in time per-
ception. This assumption is further supported by several
neuroimaging studies, showing activation of the frontal cortex,
particularly the right prefrontal cortex, during the processing of
suprasecond intervals (for a review, see, Grondin, 2010). The
frontal lobes are not the only neuroanatomical regions associated
with time perception. The medial temporal lobe also seems to
play a key role in this ability. The classic case study of H.M.,
who underwent a bilateral medial temporal lobe resection, shows
underestimation for durations of more than 20 s in this patient
(Richards, 1973). More precisely, patients with left medial tem-
poral lobe lesions tend to show impairments in retrospective
and prospective timing, whereas those with right lesions show
impairments only in prospective time perception (Noulhiane,
Pouthas, Hasboun, Baulac, & Samson, 2007). Taken together,
these studies suggest that the frontal and medial temporal lobes
are the main cortical regions involved in time perception. Note-
worthy is that medial temporal lobe lesions are considered as
the neuroanatomical hallmark of AD (McKhann et al., 2011), sug-
gesting how much timing ability can be affected by this disease.
As previously stated, our paper aims to investigate retrospec-
tive time perception in normal aging and AD. The slim body of
existing literature suggests that retrospective time is subjectively
perceived as shorter than prospective time (Zakay & Block, 2004).
Therefore, we hypothesize that retrospective time should be per-
ceived as shorter than prospective time. In view of the literature
suggesting that past events are perceived as shorter by older
adults than by younger adults (e.g., Friedman & Janssen, 2010),
we suppose that prospective time will be more underestimated
by AD patients than by older or younger adults. Because mental
time travel seems to rely on subjective time estimation, we ex-
pect significant correlations between mental time travel and time
perception. Significant correlations can also be expected between
time perception end executive function. The latter ability is be-
lieved to reflect frontal functioning (e.g., Denckla, 1996), a region
that is also strongly involved in time perception (Binkofski &
Block, 1996; Grondin, 2010; Koch et al., 2002; Wiener & Coslett,
2008).
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Sixteen subjects with probable AD ((10 women and 6 men;
Mean age = 71.94 years, SD = 6.74; Mean years of formal educa-
tion = 8.81, SD = 2.51, Mean Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE,
Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) = 21.44, SD = 1.78)), 16 healthy
older adults (9 women and 7 men; Mean age = 68.50 years,
SD = 7.63; Mean years of formal education = 10.50, SD = 3.22, Mean
MMSE = 28.25, SD = 1.52), and 16 younger adults (10 women and 6
men; Mean age = 22.06 years, SD = 3.64; Mean years of formal edu-
cation = 14.88, SD = 2.52) voluntarily participated in this study. AD
participants, meeting NINCDS–ADRDA criteria (National Institute
of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke–Alzhei-
mer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association McKhann et al.,
1984) for probable AD, were recruited from local retirement
homes. There were no significant differences in terms of age,
t(30) = 1.65, p > .10, or sociocultural level, t(30) = 1.35, p > .10, be-
tween these participants and the healthy older adults. The older
adults were often the spouses, relatives or friends of the AD partic-
ipants. Their verbal ability (M = 30.38, SD = 8.69) was matched
with the verbal skills of a group of younger adults (M = 34.25,
SD = 7.16), as measured with the Mill Hill vocabulary test (French
translation by Deltour, 1993). Although the years of education
were significantly higher in the younger adult group than in
the older adults, t(30) = 4.27, p < .001, no differences in verbal
ability were found between both groups on the Mill Hill test,
t(30) = 1.37, p > .10.
All participants were French native speakers and reported nor-
mal or corrected-to-normal visual and auditory acuity. The follow-
ing exclusion criteria were applied: major linguistic impairments,
alcohol or drug use, history of clinical depression significant psy-
chiatric or neurological illness, cerebrovascular disease, or trau-
matic brain damage. All participants were administered a
neuropsychological battery including five executive tasks and
one episodic memory task. This battery is fully described else-
where (El Haj & Allain, 2012; El Haj, Fasotti, & Allain, 2012a; El
Haj, Fasotti, & Allain, 2012b; El Haj, Postal, & Allain, 2013). The
neuropsychological test performance of each group is illustrated
in Table 1.
2.2. Procedures
2.2.1. Time perception
Participants were tested individually in an area free from audi-
tory and visual distractions. Experiments took place either in their
retirement/own home (for the AD participants and older adults) or
at the university (for the younger adults). We also tested partici-
pants at their respective age-optimal time of the day. AD partici-
pants and older adults were tested in the morning whereas
younger adults were examined in the afternoon.
The experimental procedures included four retrospective and
four prospective trials. Each trial was lasting 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, or
120 s. The interval of 30–120 s was chosen because estimating de-
lay less than 30 s seems to be preserved in AD patients (Carrasco
et al., 2000). On the other hand, Rueda et al. (2009) suggest evalu-
ating estimation of intervals lasting more than 60 s, this to approx-
imate activities of daily life with these patients. The retrospective
and prospective trials were assessed in two sessions, spaced one
week apart on average. Sessions and trials were counterbalanced
across participants. For instance, in one session a participant ful-
filled three retrospective (30 s, 90 s, and 120 s) and one prospective
tasks (90 s), and in the second session she/he performed one pro-
spective (60 s) and three prospective tasks (30 s, 60 s, and 120 s).
 M. El Haj et al. / Brain and Cognition 83 (2013) 45–51
Table 1
Neuropsychological characteristics of participants in the three study groups.
Task
Shifting Plus–Minus
Updating Two-back
Inhibition Stroop
Digit spans Forward span
Backward span
Episodic memory Five-words
Note: Standard deviations given in parentheses; AD = Alzheimer’s disease.
Comparisons were established with post hoc Scheffé test.
n/s
The difference with the following group was non-significant.
*
The difference with the following group was significant at: p < .05.
**
The difference with the following group was significant at: p < .01.
***
The difference with the following group was significant at: p < .001.
Another participants fulfilled two retrospective (60 s and 90 s) and
two prospective tasks (30 s and 60 s), and in the second session
she/he performed two prospective (30 s and 120 s) and two pro-
spective tasks (90 s and 120 s). The session and trial orders were
randomized for each participant.
Each retrospective task consisted of a different activity: decid-
ing whether words were abstract or concrete (30 s), filling con-
nected squares (60 s), deciding whether words were animal or
object names (90 s), or reading a text about mushroom picking
(120 s). All tasks were paper-and-pencil-based. Prior to each task,
the experimenter explained the lure purpose of the procedure
(e.g., categorizing words as representing abstract or concrete
things). He then asked the participants if they were ready to per-
form the task. When the answer was affirmative, he gave the signal
‘‘Go’’. At the end of the corresponding time interval (30 s, 60 s, 90 s,
or 120 s), he gave a ‘‘Stop’’ signal and immediately asked the par-
ticipants ‘‘How many seconds did the task last?’’.
At the start of the ‘‘Go’’ signal, the experimenter activated a lap-
top stopwatch. At ‘Stop’’ the stopwatch was deactivated. The
screen of the laptop was hidden from the participants’ view so that
she/he was not aware of timing. For the same purpose, the exper-
imenter was careful to give the ‘‘Go’’ signal and to keep working on
the laptop during all the study tasks. During the retrospective con-
dition, all the participants had the same mindset. Namely, they
were instructed that their task was to complete the assignments
as accurately as possible. Another precaution that was taken to
minimize guessing for the real purpose of these tasks was inter-
mixing them with neuropsychological tests, in which participants
were not asked to provide time estimation.
The procedures of the retrospective condition were the same
but for four other prospective tasks (lasting 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, or
120 s). However, here the participants were explicitly instructed
that the task consisted of reading a series of numbers and to esti-
mate the duration of reading. Numbers randomly ranged between
3 and 5 digits, in view of the fact that reading numbers with less
than 3 digits can be done in 1 s which may bias time estimation.
On the other hand, reading more than 5 digit numbers can be chal-
lenging for AD patients. In order to prevent subvocal counting, par-
ticipants were asked to read numbers aloud.
Performance on time perception was represented by two vari-
ables: mean time estimate and absolute error value. The first mea-
sure designates the raw score registered for each time interval. The
second measure refers to the difference between the mean time
interval and the real interval, regardless of the sign (Hicks, Miller,
& Kinsbourne, 1976). The absolute error measure was used because
Rueda et al. (2009) signal it as a sensitive indicator of time percep-
tion deficits in AD.
2.2.2. Remember/Know paradigm
Mental time travel was assessed with the Remember/Know par-
adigm (Gardiner, 2001). This paradigm consists of a study and a
47
Younger Older AD
n/s ***
4.31 (1.79) 6.63 (4.23) 13.18 (4.86)
3.80 (2.57) ** 9.81 (5.10)n/s 11.94 (5.06)
13.50 (3.50) *** 36.94 (16.13) *** 61.69 (7.68)
7.19 (1.41) n/s 6.19 (1.47)** 4.25 (1.29)
5.69 (1.35)* 4.31 (1.66) a 3.44 (1.20)
5.00 (0.00) n/s 4.81 (0.40) *** 3.44 (1.26)
recognition phase. In the study phase, participants were presented
with a list of 12 words. These words (i.e., translated from French:
vest, domino, copper, lime, judo, celery, harp, waltz, stool, phone,
fork, pen) were selected according to their frequency (Content,
Mousty, & Radeau, 1990) and consisted of two or three syllables.
Their presentation was randomized in the study and the recogni-
tion phase. They were printed in a black, 48 Time New Roman font.
and presented separately in the center of a white A4 paper sheet.
Each word was presented during approximately 5 s. Participants
had to read the words aloud and try to memorize them. After an
interval of approximately 5 min, filled with executive/timing tasks,
a recognition task was administered. Subjects were presented the
12 formerly-exposed words added to 12 unrelated foils, in the
same way as in the study phase. For each word, the participants
had to decide whether it was old or new. If judged to be old, par-
ticipants gave a ‘‘Remember’’ response if they could consciously
recollect details about the word presentation, or they gave a
‘‘Know’’ response if they did not recollect specific details about
its presentation. When participants were not sure about their deci-
sion, they were asked to give a ‘‘Guess’’ response (for a similar pro-
cedures, see, Clarys, Bugaiska, Tapia, & Baudouin, 2009). There was
no time limit for responses.
Prior to this task, and in order to ensure that participants under-
stood the difference between the Remember and Know responses,
the experimenter explained: ‘‘Imagine you recognize a person you
encounter. If you can remember information about him (e.g., his
name, where and when you have met him before) then you
‘‘remember’’ him. On the contrary, if you cannot remember such
information, than you ‘‘know’’ him. The same can be said about
the words that you will see. If you recognize an earlier-exposed
word (e.g., gift) and you remember that, during its presentation,
you thought about a gift that you have already received, you can
provide a ‘‘Remember’’ response. If you only know that this word
was in the list without remembering more information, than we
expect a ‘‘Know’’ response from you. However, if you are not sure
whether you remember or know the word than you can give a
‘‘Guess’’ response. To further familiarize participants with these
instructions, they went through this procedure with four training
words (two targets, two lures) in the same way as in the later
Remember/Know paradigm.
Recognition scores for the ‘‘Remember’’ responses were calcu-
lated as the number of correct recognition (hits/targets) minus
the proportion of false alarms (false alarms/lures) (for a similar
procedure, see, Clarys et al., 2009). For instance, if a participant
provided 6 ‘‘Remember’’ responses to 12 former exposed words,
his hit rate was 6/12 = .50. If the same participant provided 4
‘‘Remember’’ responses to the 12 lure words, hits false alarms rates
was 4/12 = .33. The recognition ‘‘Remember’’ score for this partici-
pant was .50 .33 = .17.
The same procedure was adopted for calculating the perfor-
mance for the ‘‘Know’’ responses. The ‘‘Guess’’ responses were
48 M. El Haj et al. / Brain and Cognition 83 (2013) 45–51

not taken into account because they were only used to enhance the Table 2
quality of the ‘‘Know’’ responses. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for mean time estimates and
absolute errors values in the four prospective and the four retrospective timing tasks.

2.3. Results Younger Older Alzheimer

Mean time estimates
In this section, we first analyzed the performances on the pro- Prospective condition
spective and retrospective timing tasks as expressed in time esti- 30 s 24.06 (6.88) 22.13 (8.44) 17.50 (9.37)
60 s 52.50 (11.34) 46.38 (10.45) 41.84 (23.36)
mates and absolute errors values. To this end, we used a 90 s 73.19 (25.24) 65.61 (22.39) 52.31(18.19)
repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with group 120 s 101.44 (36.31) 83.50 (21.58) 74.19 (35.45)
(younger adults, older adults, and AD patients) as the between-par- Retrospective condition
ticipants factor and condition (prospective and retrospective tim- 30 s 22.50 (9.75) 19.06 (12.54) 16.25 (9.03)
ing) as the repeated measures. Second, scores obtained on the 60 s 50.00 (21.87) 41.65 (15.22) 35.01 (17.17)
Remember/Know paradigm, expressed in recognition scores for 90 s 65.19 (26.13) 52.06 (22.98) 49.63 (18.46)
120 s 75.69 (25.77) 66.13 (26.88) 61.25 (24.05)
the ‘‘Remember’’ and ‘‘Know’’ responses, were analyzed using an
ANOVA with 2 factors: 3 groups (younger adults, older adults, Absolute error values
and AD patients)  2 responses (Remember and Know). When
Prospective condition
reporting significant effects of the F value in an ANOVA, Eta- 30 s 7.44 (5.09) 9.69 (6.03) 14.38 (5.84)
squared values are mentioned to provide effect-size information 60 s 11.50 (6.90) 15.00 (8.21) 26.00 (13.78)
((according to Cohen (1988), g2 < .01 means a small size effect 90 s 28.06 (9.94) 28.75 (16.78) 39.56 (15.38)
and g2 > .14 means a large size effect)). We then calculated 120 s 31.69 (20.86) 36.50 (21.58) 53.31 (21.54)

Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients to analyze the Retrospective condition

relationships between prospective/retrospective mean time
estimates, Remember/Know responses, and the five executive
measures. This, after we had transformed all raw data to z-scores.
Finally, in order to detect which executive measure explained
variance on prospective/retrospective mean time estimates, two
forward stepwise regression analyses were computed.
Prior to performing analyses, variables were plotted and
checked for normal distribution with Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests.
Regression analyses were performed after controlling for the po-
tential confounding effects of age and educational level.
2.3.1. Time perception
Table 2 illustrates the mean time estimates and absolute error
values in the prospective and retrospective timing tasks. Analyses
showed a significant group effect, F(2, 45) = 19.78, p < .001,
g2 = .46. Scheffé post hoc tests revealed that the AD patients gave
shorter time estimations (M = 43.49, SD = 9.70) than older adults
(M = 49.56, SD = 7.44) (p < .05). Older adults also generated shorter
time estimations than younger adults (M = 58.07, SD = 10.18)
(p < .01). The condition effect was also significant, F(1, 45) =
18.83, p < .001, g2 = .29. The retrospective tasks (M = 46.20,
SD = 9.87) were perceived as shorter than the prospective ones
(M = 54.55, SD = 12.05). The interaction effect between group and
condition was not significant, F < 1.
Because it is of interest to investigate whether prospective time
estimation was significantly shorter than real time, we compared
both timings with paired-samples t tests. Analyses showed that
the mean estimation of the duration of prospective tasks
(M = 54.55, SD = 12.05) was significantly shorter than the mean
real time of these tasks (M = 75.00, SD = 00.00), t(47) = 11.81,
p < .001.
With regard to absolute errors values, repeated measures ANO-
VA were carried out, just as those for mean time estimates. The re-
sults showed a significant group effect, F(2, 45) = 16.63, p < .001,
g2 = .42. Scheffé post hoc test revealed that the discrepancy be-
tween the verbal estimate and the true time interval was signifi-
cantly larger for the AD participants (M = 34.08, SD = 8.66) than
for the older adults (M = 26.50, SD = 7.75) (p < .01). However, the
difference between older and younger adults was not significant.
The condition effect was significant, F(1, 45) = 9.96, p < .01,
g2 = .18. The magnitude of the discrepancy between the verbal
estimate and the true time interval was significantly smaller for
the prospective (M = 25.16, SD = 9.34) than for the retrospective
condition (M = 30.42, SD = 9.31). The interaction effect between
groups and conditions was not significant, F(2, 45) = 1.34, p > .10.
30 s 9.87 (7.14) 14.69 (7.41) 15.63 (4.78)
60 s 20.00 (12.59) 18.75 (15.22) 24.69 (17.17)
90 s 28.56 (21.67) 37.94 (22.98) 40.38 (18.46)
120 s 44.31 (25.77) 52.00 (27.46) 58.75 (24.06)
2.3.2. Remember/Know paradigm
Table 3 illustrates the scores obtained on the Remember/Know
paradigm. Analyses showed a trend toward a group effect, F(2,
45) = 2.93, p = .063, g2 = .11. However, Scheffé post hoc test yielded
no significant differences between groups. The difference between
the ‘‘Remember’’ and ‘‘Know’’ responses was not significant, F(1,
45) = 1.54, p > .1, g2 = .03. The interaction effect between the group
factor and the response factor was significant, F(2, 45) = 6.74,
p < .01, g2 = .23. The difference between the ‘‘Remember’’ and
‘‘Know’’ responses was larger for the younger adults than for the
other participants.
2.3.3. Correlation analysis
Table 4 shows the correlation matrix. Significant correlations
were found between prospective/retrospective timing and
‘‘Remember’’ responses, whereas no such correlations were found
for ‘‘Know’’ responses. As to executive functions, significant corre-
lations were found between prospective timing and performances
on the Plus–Minus, Two-back, Stroop and Forward span tasks. The
same conclusion can be drawn for retrospective timing.
Regression analysis showed that, among the correlated execu-
tive measures, the performance on the Stroop task was the only
variable contributing to the prospective and retrospective timing
index, accounting for 28.7% (p < .001) and 27.5% (p < .001) of these
factors’ variances. Executive function seems to account for more
variation in prospective timing than in retrospective timing.
3. Discussion
The main aim of the present paper was to compare prospective
and retrospective time perception in older adults and AD patients.
We also investigated the relationships between time perception
and mental time travel. Our results suggest that, for all partici-
pants, retrospective time was more underestimated than prospec-
tive timing, and both timings were underestimated when
compared with actual interval time. Time estimation, especially
retrospective estimation was significantly correlated with the
 M. El Haj et al. / Brain and Cognition 83 (2013) 45–51 49

Table 3
Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for recognition scores for ‘‘Remem-
ber’’ and ‘‘Know’’ responses.
Younger Older
Remember .37 (.21) .21 (.20)
Know .17 (.19) .16 (.18)
‘‘Remember’’ responses or the ability to mentally project oneself to
relive past events.
Disorders of temporal processing have been extensively investi-
gated in normal aging and, to some extent, in AD. However, few
experiments have been carried out on retrospective time percep-
tion with older adults (Block et al., 1998) and AD patients. Fried-
man et al. (2010) recently addressed this shortcoming by
assessing prospective and retrospective time estimation with a
large cohort of younger and older adults who were asked to report
their subjective experience of forthcoming (e.g., how fast do you
expect the next hour to pass?) and elapsed time (e.g., how fast
did the previous week pass for you?). Most participants reported
experiencing time as passing quickly. Elapsed time was perceived
as quicker than forthcoming time and forthcoming time was per-
ceived as quicker than actual time. The feeling that time passes
quickly did not differ between younger and older adults, except
for very long past intervals (e.g., how fast did the previous 10 years
pass for you?). The findings of Friedman et al. (2010) fit with our
own results, showing more underestimation of the duration of ret-
rospective than prospective tasks. Our findings further replicate
those of Friedman et al. (2010) on short time intervals (<120 s).
In line with papers investigating time perception in AD (Carras-
co et al., 2000; Caselli et al., 2009; Nichelli et al., 1993; Papagno
et al., 2004; Rueda et al., 2009), our data point to a considerable
perturbation in time estimation in these patients. Our AD partici-
pants gave shorter verbal time estimations than older adults and
younger participants did, suggesting that time is perceived to pass
quickly in AD patients. According to existing literature, the pertur-
bation of time perception in AD can be attributed to several factors,
such as executive/attentional functions (Carrasco et al., 2000; Pap-
agno et al., 2004) and distortions in the internal clock (Caselli et al.,
2009). Even though suggesting different explanations, this litera-
ture highlights the common link between the perturbation in time
estimation and memory disorders in AD. We would like to push the
latter account a bit further, as our findings show reliable correla-
tions between time perception and the ‘‘Remember’’ reports, refer-
ring to mental time travel. In the following, we will discuss the link
between time perception and mental time travel, but first we
would like to emphasize, at a general level, the relationship be-
tween time perception and memory.
The relationship between time perception and memory can be
understood by referring to the attentional gate model (Block & Za-
kay, 1996; Zakay & Block, 1996). According to this view, prospec-
tive timing requires an attentional gate controlling pulses that
are emitted by a pacemaker. When attentional resources are solic-
Alzheimer ited for timing, the gate allows more pulses to head to an accumu-
.08 (.11) lator. The main function of the accumulator is to count the number
.21 (.24) of pulses, referring to the duration of an interval. When a target
interval must be reproduced, the numbers of ongoing pulses that
are counted into the accumulator are compared with previous
pulses counts, who are stored in working memory and long-term
memory. Interesting in this account, is that the dependency of time
perception on memory is high, both working memory and long-
term memory are constantly compared when producing target
intervals. In this sense, the attentional gate model might be consid-
ered as a theoretical cornerstone emphasizing how time percep-
tion and memory are overlapping. This being said, it is
interesting to illustrate the link between time perception and the
core episodic memory component, that is, mental time travel. Next
we will disentangle this issue.
Time is physically irreversible. This law can however be violated
by mental time travel. Traveling back into the past is the hallmark
of human being. According to Tulving (2002), the most distinguish-
ing feature of human memory is mental time travel, or the state of
autonoetic consciousness permitting the episodic reliving of past
experiences. Mental time travel is further considered by Tulving
(2002) as allowing the feeling of subjective time in which events
happened. By inducing the feeling of subjective time, mental time
travel is likely to be heavily related to time perception, which may
explain why in our paper the ‘‘Remember’’ responses, reflecting
autonoetic reliving, were significantly correlated with the perfor-
mance on time perception. It is worth noting that no significant
correlations were found between the latter performance and
‘‘Know’’ responses, reflecting a discrepancy between time percep-
tion and noetic consciousness, or a failure to achieve mental time
travel.
With regard to AD patients, time perception perturbations in
these patients can be related to their failure to mentally travel back
in time to relive past events. Studies of retrospective time percep-
tion have shown that intervals are underestimated if fewer events
are remembered (Block, 1989). Therefore, it is likely that the diffi-
culty of recollecting many events from a certain interval of time
leads to the impression that this interval is shorter than actual time
(for a similar suggestion, see, Friedman et al., 2010). Hence, we
suggest that by leaving fewer events to be remembered, episodic
decline, or mental time travel failure in AD patients, induces the
feeling of ‘‘empty’’ time interval, and thus, the underestimation
of elapsed time.
Beside the cognitive processes that may underlie time percep-
tion deficits in AD patients, it would be of interest to shed light
on the neural bases of such deficits. Our correlation analyses link
executive function to time perception, suggesting frontal involve-
ment in the latter ability. Not surprisingly, the literature suggests

Table 4
Correlation matrix for prospective/retrospective timing, Remember/Know responses, and executive measures.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Prospective timing –
2. Retrospective timing .38** –
3. Remember .36* .32* –
4. Know .23 .10 –.32* –
5. Plus–Minus .45** .40** .21 .01 –
6. Two-back .40** .52** .37** .01 .40** –
7. Stroop .53** .44** .46** .04 .64** .52** –
8. Forward span .40** .32* .40** .12 .41** .51** .57** –
9. Backward span .24 .22 .44** .07 .32* .47** .44** .40** –
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
50 M. El Haj et al. / Brain and Cognition 83 (2013) 45–51
a key role of frontal regions in timing mechanisms (Binkofski &
Block, 1996; Grondin, 2010; Koch et al., 2002; Wiener & Coslett,
2008). As our regression analyses show, frontal participation is
highly relevant for retrospective timing. This mirrors classical neu-
ropsychological observations, reporting severe difficulties in pro-
spective thinking in patients with frontal lobe damage
(Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Tulving, 1985). Neuroimaging data also
show frontal activation in the construction of future events (Addis,
Wong, & Schacter, 2007). The frontal lobes seem to be highly rele-
vant for prospective processing. Our data confirm these findings on
prospective time perception. Parallel to frontal intervention, hip-
pocampal activation is also important. Noulhiane et al. (2007) have
investigated hippocampal involvement in time perception. The
authors found that patients with left medial temporal lobe lesions
had deficits in retrospective and prospective time perception,
whereas those with right medial temporal lobe lesions were only
impaired in prospective time perception. These results highlight
the role of the medial temporal lobe in time perception mecha-
nisms. It should be noted that this area is the main site for amyloid
deposition and therefore structurally and functionally compro-
mised in AD (McKhann et al., 2011). After suggesting a potential
neuroanatomical substrate for time perception deficits in AD pa-
tients, we turn to the prospective aspect of mental time travel.
Intuitively, mental time travel can be linked to past events.
However, this faculty also allows forward projecting in time to
pre-live possible events in the future (Berntsen & Jacobsen,
2008). Recent neuroimaging studies show that both remembering
the past and projecting oneself into the future activate a common
neural network (Addis, Sacchetti, Ally, Budson, & Schacter, 2009).
This conclusion is corroborated by our finding, of a significant cor-
relation between mental time travel and prospective timing, both
requiring the processing of forthcoming events. This correlation
however, was slightly lower than with retrospective timing, sug-
gesting a higher involvement of mental time travel in the estima-
tion of past intervals. It is worth noting here that, in line with
our findings, prospective timing has been acknowledged as being
more mediated by an internal clock (see, Scalar timing model,
Church, 2006; Gibbon, Church, & Meck, 1984) than by cognitive
factors (e.g., mental time travel).
In our attempts to link time perception to mental time travel,
we have evaluated the first ability with intervals ranging from
30 s to 120 s. It would be interesting to extend this relationship
to long term timing. Although studies dealing with time perception
in AD patients are mainly concerned with intervals ranging from
100m s to 50 s (Carrasco et al., 2000; Caselli et al., 2009; Nichelli
et al., 1993; Papagno et al., 2004), clinical observations suggest
substantial deterioration in long term timing in these patients. In
autobiographical assessments, for instance, these patients show
great difficulties in remembering and estimating the dates of past
events. A difficulty that may weaken their sense of time and reduce
their ability to mentally project themselves in time. Both short
term and long term timing difficulties in AD patients can be related
to hippocampal deterioration. As already mentioned, the work by
Noulhiane et al. (2007) attributes difficulties in timing intervals
ranging from 1 to 8 min to hippocampal lesions. Hippocampal
involvement has also been found in long term timing. Evidences
from several experimental paradigms used in human and animal
research suggest that the hippocampus plays a key role in the tem-
poral organization of memories. This key role is attributed to time
cells, hippocampal neurons that fire at a specific moment within a
temporally structured episode (Eichenbaum, 2013). At a more cog-
nitive level, several studies highlight hippocampal involvement in
the phenomenological experience of mental time travel (Piolino,
Desgranges, & Eustache, 2009). Taken together, these results
underpin the link between short term/long term time perception
and mental time travel.
One may argue that the body of literature dealing with retro-
spective timing is relatively small. Indeed, retrospective paradigms
present a crucial methodological challenge. After providing a retro-
spective judgment, the participants are likely to suspect that fur-
ther time judgments will be asked and the paradigm thus
becomes prospective. Our experimental procedure has addressed
this challenge by spacing tasks one week apart and by varying
the nature of the retrospective tasks (e.g., text reading and words
categorizing). For the same aim, the participants had the same
mindset. That is, they were induced to believe that it was their task
to complete the assignments as accurately as possible, so that they
would not be aware, as far as possible, of the timing nature of these
tasks. In our design, another element prevented the guessing of the
real purpose of retrospective tasks, namely intermixing them with
the administration of several of neuropsychological tests.
One important limitation of our experimental set-up is its pa-
per-and-pencil character. This may have influenced the accuracy
of time measurement For instance, there may have been some dis-
crepancy (in terms of milliseconds) between the ‘‘Go’’ and ‘‘Stop’’
signals given by the experimenter, and his stopwatch manipula-
tion. The paper-and-pencil procedures were adopted to simulate
everyday life situations and also to avoid (our) use of sophisticated
electronic devices to AD patients. Replications of our study should
address this shortcoming by using simple electronic devices.
In summary, AD patients seem to perceive time as passing more
quickly than older or younger adults. This perturbation can be re-
lated to failures in mental time travel. As already mentioned, Tul-
ving’s (2002) ‘‘no sense of subjective time, no mental time travel’’
(p. 2) assertion, makes us wonder whether time perception pertur-
bation in AD would underlie the mental time travel difficulties of
these patients, or whether the reverse might be true.
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