Perception of social interaction compresses subjective duration in an oxytocin-dependent manner
Rui Liu,
Xiangyong Yuan,
Kepu Chen,
Yi Jiang,
Wen Zhou
Affiliations
Rui Liu
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Xiangyong Yuan
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Kepu Chen
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China
Communication through body gestures permeates our daily life. Efficient perception of the message therein reflects one’s social cognitive competency. Here we report that such competency is manifested temporally as shortened subjective duration of social interactions: motion sequences showing agents acting communicatively are perceived to be significantly shorter in duration as compared with those acting noncommunicatively. The strength of this effect is negatively correlated with one’s autistic-like tendency. Critically, intranasal oxytocin administration restores the temporal compression effect in socially less proficient individuals, whereas the administration of atosiban, a competitive antagonist of oxytocin, diminishes the effect in socially proficient individuals. These findings indicate that perceived time, rather than being a faithful representation of physical time, is highly idiosyncratic and ingrained with one’s personality trait. Moreover, they suggest that oxytocin is involved in mediating time perception of social interaction, further supporting the role of oxytocin in human social cognition.
