Marcos Encarni, Genovesio Aldo
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Front Neurosci. 2017 Nov 21;11:631. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00631. eCollection 2017.
Influences between time and space can be found in our daily life in which we are surrounded by numerous spatial metaphors to refer to time. For instance, when we move files from one folder to another in our computer a horizontal line that grows from left to right informs us about the elapsed and remaining time to finish the procedure and, similarly, in our communication we use several spatial terms to refer to time. Although with some differences in the degree of interference, not only space has an influence on time but both magnitudes influence each other. Indeed, since our childhood our estimations of time are influenced by space even when space should be irrelevant and the same occurs when estimating space with time as distractor. Such interference between magnitudes has also been observed in monkeys even if they do not use language or computers, suggesting that the two magnitudes are tightly coupled beyond communication and technology. Imaging and lesion studies have indicated that same brain areas are involved during the processing of both magnitudes and have suggested that rather than coding the specific magnitude itself the brain represents them as abstract concepts. Recent neurophysiological studies in prefrontal cortex, however, have shown that the coding of absolute and relative space and time in this area is realized by independent groups of neurons. Interestingly, instead, a high overlap was observed in this same area in the coding of goal choices across tasks. These results suggest that rather than during perception or estimation of space and time the interference between the two magnitudes might occur, at least in the prefrontal cortex, in a subsequent phase in which the goal has to be chosen or the response provided.
时间与空间之间的相互影响在我们的日常生活中随处可见，在日常生活里，我们被大量用于指代时间的空间隐喻所包围。例如，当我们在电脑中把文件从一个文件夹移动到另一个文件夹时，一条从左向右延伸的水平线会告知我们完成该操作已过去的时间和剩余时间，同样，在我们的交流中，我们会使用几个空间术语来指代时间。尽管在干扰程度上存在一些差异，但不仅空间会对时间产生影响，而且这两个量相互影响。事实上，从童年起，我们对时间的估计就受到空间的影响，即使空间本应无关紧要，而当用时间作为干扰因素来估计空间时，情况也是如此。即使猴子不使用语言或电脑，在它们身上也观察到了这种量之间的干扰，这表明这两个量在交流和技术之外也紧密相连。成像和损伤研究表明，在处理这两个量的过程中涉及相同的脑区，并表明大脑并非编码特定的量本身，而是将它们表示为抽象概念。然而，最近在前额叶皮层进行的神经生理学研究表明，该区域中绝对和相对空间与时间的编码是由独立的神经元群体实现的。有趣的是，相反，在同一区域中，跨任务的目标选择编码存在高度重叠。这些结果表明，至少在前额叶皮层中，这两个量之间的干扰可能不是发生在对空间和时间的感知或估计过程中，而是发生在随后必须选择目标或做出反应的阶段。
