Time Perception and Depression Symptoms: A Perceived Delay Cues Feelings of Hopelessness

The relationship between time perception and affect is bidirectional: Negative affective states tend to dilate (i.e., expand or slow) perceived duration, and unexpected delays (i.e., expanded durations) can induce negative affect like boredom or frustration. However, when studying time perception in affective disorders like depression, the direction of effect is typically viewed in terms of how affect, emotion or mood distort time perception. This experimental study reverses the direction of effect by showing that an experimentally-induced and unexpected expansion of time (i.e., “delay” condition) can increase reported levels of hopelessness, a symptom of depression. After a brief time production task, non-depressed participants who had been randomly allocated longer second than first intervals (i.e., an experimentally cued “delay”) reported higher levels of subsequent hopelessness. This was especially true for their “feelings about the future”, a subscale of the Beck Hopelessness Scale. It is proposed that the “delay” effect occurred where feelings of frustration or boredom with short-term present experience were generalized to the long-term expected future. Increased hopelessness after an unexpected delay is thought to be the result of a change in hierarchical Bayesian inference. A change in lower-order statistical reasoning about the present timing task affected higher-order abstract reasoning about the future. This suggests a potentially modifiable link between time perception and a common symptom of depression.