ABSTRACT
It is well known that subjective duration is related to cognitive processes. Also, differences between the information processing and analyzing systems of both cerebral hemispheres have been reported. This study attempts to determine whether or not the left brain is superior in the encoding of time. In Experiment I the subjects reconstructed the durations of simple reaction time tasks carried out predominantly by either the left or the right brain half in the visual and auditory modality. It appeared that the variances of the time estimates of the right brain considerably exceeded those of the left. Consequently, there is a relatively great time uncertainty in the right brain. This difference was clear for the auditory modality but it was not observed for visual stimuli. In Experiment II the subjects reacted to visual stimuli with irregular intervals as well as to regularly presented auditory stimuli. The visual task primarily loaded either the left or the right hemisphere, the other being mainly involved in the auditory reactions. With respect to the auditory RTs, the left brain showed a faster training effect over trials, indicating a better discovery of the internal structure of a time series and a relatively superior prediction of events in time. In Experiment III it was observed that the left hemisphere is also better in the detection of short interruptions in noise bursts. The findings suggest that one of the structural differences between the cerebral hemispheres stems from the degree to which processed information is analyzed and encoded in time.
