Samuel L. Macey

Bio: Samuel L. Macey is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Encyclopedia & Honor. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 8 publications receiving 96 citations.

The Dynamics of Progress: Time, Method, and Measure

Abstract: In Chaucer's day, an hour varied between 40 and 80 minutes, depending on the latitude and time of year. Since then our time measurements have become much more exact; today the second is defined by the vibration of caesium 133 atoms. Similarly, our irrational measures of length, area, weight and volume were often related to the diverse sizes of man and varied widely in different jurisdictions until the metric systems was devised. The development of increasingly precise measurements are an essential part of what Samuel Macey identifies as the West's wide-ranging effort to "rationalize" human activity - to simplify and standardize the way we work and communicate with one another. In "The Dynamics of Progress", Macey examines the history of such rationalizations as they have manifested themselves not only in temporal and spatial measurement but also in the development of language, numerical systems and the processes of production, distribution and finance. He identifies a symbiotic relationship among these different types of rationalization, aiming to demonstrate that without the rationalizing of time, weights and measures, numbers and language, the scientific, technological and industrial advances of the past three hundred years would have been inconceivable. In addition to discussing rationalization in its various forms, Macey also addresses reactions against it.

Prospective and retrospective duration judgments: A meta-analytic review

Abstract: Most theorists propose that when a person is aware that a duration judgment must be made (prospective paradigm), experienced duration depends on attention to temporal information, which competes with attention to nontemporal information. When a person is not aware that a duration judgment must be made until later (retrospective paradigm), remembered duration depends on incidental memory for temporal information. In the present article we describe two experiments in which durations involved with high-level, executive-control functions were judged either prospectively or retrospectively. In one experiment, the executive function involved resolving syntactic ambiguity in reading. In another experiment, it involved controlling the switching between tasks. In both experiments, there was a unique cost to the operation of control high-level, executive functions which was manifested by prospective reproductions shortening a finding that supports an attentional model of prospective timing. In addition, activation of executive functions produced contextual changes that were encoded in memory and resulted in longer retrospective reproductions, a finding that supports a contextual-change model of retrospective timing. Thus, different cognitive processes underlie prospective and retrospective timing. Recent findings obtained by some brain researchers also support these conclusions.

From physical time to the first and second moments of psychological time.

Abstract: After examination of the status of time in experimental psychology and a review of related major texts, 2 opposite approaches are presented in which time is either unified or fragmented. Unified time perception views, usually guided by Weber's law, are embodied in various models. After a brief review of old models and a description of the major contemporary models of time perception, views on fragmented time perception are presented as challenges for any unified time view. Fragmentation of psychological time emerges from (a) disruptions of the Weber function, which are caused by the types of interval presentation, by extensive practice, and by counting explicitly or not; and (b) modulations of time sensitivity and perceived duration by attention and interval structures. Weber's law is a useful guide for studying psychological time, but it is also reasonable to assume that more than one so-called central timekeeper could contribute to perceiving time.

Representaciones temporales en la construcción del espacio y el sujeto atlántico en el siglo XVII

Abstract: espanolRepresentaciones temporales en la construccion del espacio y el sujeto atlantico en el siglo XVII es un estudio sobre las diferentes representaciones de la temporalidad y el espacio en textos literarios e historicos como las cronicas originadas en Peru y Espana. Con la conquista de America, el Atlantico emergio como un espacio privilegiado donde se desarrollaba el intercambio y el comercio. Este proyecto busca comprender la nueva configuracion del tiempo y el espacio que aparecio durante esta epoca y que se represento en los textos literarios del Barroco. El Atlantico no es, por tanto, un oceano que separaba dos realidades sino tambien un nuevo espacio que hizo posible la emergencia de un nuevo sujeto capaz de combinar la cultura prehispanica y la episteme occidental. Este nuevo sujeto es producto de un error de traduccion de los conceptos que fueron transportados a ambas costas del Atlantico. EnglishRepresentaciones temporales en la construccion del espacio y el sujeto atlantico en el siglo XVII is a study of the different representations of time, temporaly and space in literary and historical texts such as the chronicles that originated in Peru and Spain. This project seeks to understand the new configuration of time and space that appeared at this time and that was represented in literary texts during the Spanish Baroque period. What is most important is that the Atlantic is not only an ocean that separated two realities but also a new space that made possible the emergence of a new subject who combined pre-Hispanic culture and the occidental episteme. This new subject is the product of a translation failure of the concepts that were transported back and forth across the Atlantic.

Transdisciplinary unifying implications of circadian findings in the 1950s

Abstract: A few puzzles relating to a small fraction of my endeavors in the 1950s are summarized herein, with answers to a few questions of the Editor-in-Chief, to suggest that the rules of variability in time complement the rules of genetics as a biological variability in space. I advocate to replace truisms such as a relative constancy or homeostasis, that have served bioscience very well for very long. They were never intended, however, to lower a curtain of ignorance over everyday physiology. In raising these curtains, we unveil a range of dynamics, resolvable in the data collection and as-one-goes analysis by computers built into smaller and smaller devices, for a continued self-surveillance of the normal and for an individualized detection of the abnormal. The current medical art based on spotchecks interpreted by reference to a time-unqualified normal range can become a science of time series with tests relating to the individual in inferential statistical terms. This is already doable for the case of blood pressure, but eventually should become possible for many other variables interpreted today only based on the quicksand of clinical trials on groups. These ignore individual differences and hence the individual's needs. Chronomics (mapping time structures) with the major aim of quantifying normalcy by dynamic reference values for detecting earliest risk elevation, also yields the dividend of allowing molecular biology to focus on the normal as well as on the grossly abnormal.

Perceived duration of expected and unexpected stimuli

Abstract: Three experiments assessed whether perceived stimulus duration depends on whether participants process an expected or an unexpected visual stimulus. Participants compared the duration of a constant standard stimulus with a variable comparison stimulus. Changes in expectancy were induced by presenting one type of comparison more frequently than another type. Experiment 1 used standard durations of 100 and 400 ms, and Experiments 2 and 3 durations of 400 and 800 ms. Stimulus frequency did not affect perceived duration in Experiment 1. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, frequent comparisons were perceived as shorter than infrequent ones, and discrimination performance was better for infrequent comparisons. Overall, this study supports the notion that infrequent stimuli increase the speed of an internal pacemaker.