Time perception in children: a neurodevelopmental approach

Abstract

In this review, we discuss behavioral studies on time perception in healthy children that suggest the existence of a primitive "sense" of time in infants as well as research that has revealed the changes in time judgments that occur throughout childhood. Moreover, a distinction is made between implicit and explicit time judgments in order to take account of the different types of temporal judgments that emerge across ages. On the basis of both the neurobiological model of the internal clock proposed by Matell and Meck (2000), and of results of imaging studies in human adults, we then try to identify which of the neural structures underlying this primitive sense of time mature faster and which mature more slowly in order to explain the age-related variance in time judgments. To this end, we also present the small number of timing studies conducted among typically and non-typically developing children that have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as well as those that have assessed the cognitive capacities of such children on the basis of various neuropsychological tests.