Time perception deficits in impulsivity disorders: A systematic review

This systematic review aims to identify evidences of distortions in time perception (TP) in people with impulsivity disorders or other conditions having impulsivity traits, namely traumatic brain injuries, certain personality disorders, addictive behavior disorders, and pathological gambling. Studies related to TP deficits and impulsivity disorders were retrieved from multiple literature databases, through predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. From the 197 obtained documents, 47 were selected for analysis, and a final set of 15 studies was retrieved for this review. Regardless of some conflicting findings, the available results suggest that patients with orbitofrontal lesions produce and reproduce significantly less time and estimate time periods significantly longer than healthy subjects. Patients with borderline personality disorder show decreased time perception and patients with antisocial personality disorder seem to execute more premature responses during time estimation tasks. Stimulant dependent individuals also tend to overestimate the time intervals, and pathological gamblers demonstrate shorter time horizons than social gamblers. Taken together, the available data suggest that impulsive individuals tend to overestimate the passage of time and to execute more premature responses, producing and reproducing less time, but more research is necessary to increase the strength of the evidences on this issue. This systematic review updates evidences of distortions in TP in impulsivity, improving the understanding of the relations between these two variables.