Interaction of numerosity and time in prefrontal and parietal cortex
It has been proposed that numerical and temporal information are processed by partially overlapping magnitude systems. Interactions across different magnitude domains could occur both at the level of perception and decision-making. However, their neural correlates have been elusive. Here, using func...
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Published in | The Journal of neuroscience Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 883 - 893 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Society for Neuroscience
16.01.2013
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | It has been proposed that numerical and temporal information are processed by partially overlapping magnitude systems. Interactions across different magnitude domains could occur both at the level of perception and decision-making. However, their neural correlates have been elusive. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans, we show that the right intraparietal cortex (IPC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) are jointly activated by duration and numerosity discrimination tasks, with a congruency effect in the right IFG. To determine whether the IPC and the IFG are involved in response conflict (or facilitation) or modulation of subjective passage of time by numerical information, we examined their functional roles using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and two different numerosity-time interaction tasks: duration discrimination and time reproduction tasks. Our results show that TMS of the right IFG impairs categorical duration discrimination, whereas that of the right IPC modulates the degree of influence of numerosity on time perception and impairs precise time estimation. These results indicate that the right IFG is specifically involved at the categorical decision stage, whereas bleeding of numerosity information on perception of time occurs within the IPC. Together, our findings suggest a two-stage model of numerosity-time interactions whereby the interaction at the perceptual level occurs within the parietal region and the interaction at categorical decisions takes place in the prefrontal cortex. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Author contributions: M.J.H., R.K., V.W., and N.S. designed research; M.J.H., H.C.T., and Y.Y. performed research; M.J.H. and R.K. analyzed data; M.J.H., R.K., S.C., V.W., and N.S. wrote the paper. |
ISSN: | 0270-6474 1529-2401 1529-2401 |
DOI: | 10.1523/jneurosci.6257-11.2013 |