Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Emotion timing literature has consistently shown temporal dilation for emotionally salient stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. Such stimuli have also shown preferential processing near the graspable space of the hands, known as peri-hand space (PHS). However, none of the studies have systematically examined the interplay of emotion, time perception, and peri-hand space in a unified framework. Therefore, the present study investigated the temporal factors underlying the processing of emotionally salient stimuli in PHS. Participants completed the temporal bisection task in Near-hand and Far-hand conditions. The stimuli were high-arousal emotional and low-arousal neutral images. Results showed temporal dilation for highly arousing emotional stimuli compared to low-arousal neutral stimuli in PHS, perhaps to facilitate in-depth cognitive evaluation of emotional salience. No such temporal processing differences between emotional and neutral stimuli were obtained in the far-hand condition. Temporal dilation is primarily attributed to early anticipatory mechanisms associated with PHS.