Effect of Different Body Postures on Prospective Time Perception

Abstract

Aim: The current study employed the Time Reproduction task within the Prospective Time Perception paradigm. Previous research has indicated that posture has a consequential influence on time perception. To expand upon these observations, we explored the impact of five distinct postures on participants' time perception. Methods: During each 8- to 10-minute session, 19 healthy young adults were presented with 50 audio stimuli, which took the form of 'beep' sounds and lasted 0.5, 1, 3, 4, and 6 seconds, in a random order. Participants were instructed to reproduce the duration of the stimuli in five different postures in the following order: sitting, standing, lying supine at 180 degrees, lying head down at -15 degrees (HDT), and lying prone at 180 degrees. Results: In all postures, the shorter durations were perceived as longer than they are, and the relatively longer durations were perceived as shorter than they are. Statistically significant differences were found between the postures for all stimuli durations except for 3000 ms (repeated-measures ANOVA, significance level at p < 0.05). The physically and mentally healthy participants perceived time more slowly when they adapted a lying posture (supine, prone, and -15 degrees HDT) without cognitive load. Conclusion: The current investigation is the first to examine the influence of these postures (sitting, standing, and the three different lying postures) on the perception of time, with the lying postures, but especially the HDT and prone positions, causing a significant dilation of the perception of time.