Time perception

About: Time perception is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1918 publications have been published within this topic receiving 87020 citations.

The Sense of Time While Watching a Dance Performance

Abstract: Although the judgment of time is an important experience embedded in the context of cognitive and emotional appraisal of events, there are few studies concerning perceived time within an ecological...

Neural entrainment is associated with subjective groove and complexity for performed but not mechanical musical rhythms

Abstract: Both movement and neural activity in humans can be entrained by the regularities of an external stimulus, such as the beat of musical rhythms. Neural entrainment to auditory rhythms supports temporal perception, and is enhanced by selective attention and by hierarchical temporal structure imposed on rhythms. However, it is not known how neural entrainment to rhythms is related to the subjective experience of groove (the desire to move along with music or rhythm), the perception of a regular beat, the perception of complexity, and the experience of pleasure. In two experiments, we used musical rhythms (from Steve Reich's Clapping Music) to investigate whether rhythms that are performed by humans (with naturally variable timing) and rhythms that are mechanical (with precise timing), elicit differences in (1) neural entrainment, as measured by inter-trial phase coherence, and (2) subjective ratings of the complexity, preference, groove, and beat strength of rhythms. We also combined results from the two experiments to investigate relationships between neural entrainment and subjective perception of musical rhythms. We found that mechanical rhythms elicited a greater degree of neural entrainment than performed rhythms, likely due to the greater temporal precision in the stimulus, and the two types only elicited different ratings for some individual rhythms. Neural entrainment to performed rhythms, but not to mechanical ones, correlated with subjective desire to move and subjective complexity. These data, therefore, suggest multiple interacting influences on neural entrainment to rhythms, from low-level stimulus properties to high-level cognition and perception.

The Ganzfeld experience-A stably inducible altered state of consciousness: Effects of different auditory homogenizations.

Abstract: In the Ganzfeld technique, the visual and auditory perceptual fields are homogenized. After a short exposure to completely unstructured sensory input, participants transit into an altered state of consciousness. Visual homogenization is typically accomplished by a combination of goggles and bright light; auditory homogenization is accomplished by the presentation of unstructured auditory noise via headphones. The induced state is phenomenologically similar to a transition state between wakefulness and sleep, characterized by alterations in attentiveness, perception, and awareness, as well as by a compressed sense of time. Due to these replicable features of the Ganzfeld-induced state, it can be used within empirical research on the neuronal underpinnings of altered states phenomena. After a historic overview, here, we present data from a study on the stability of the subjectively experienced effects induced under different auditory homogenization conditions. In a fully randomized within-subject design (n = 24), we tested for the effects of three different auditory noise conditions: (1) violet, (2) white, and (3) brown noise. The combination of a standardized psychometric assessment, ratings on subjective time perception, as well as open reports prove the Ganzfeld-induced effects as being stable and effects within each participant as highly replicable, and therefore well suited for experimental purposes. Finally, the subjective experiences elucidated by the Ganzfeld technique are discussed within the framework of predictive coding and how changes in the interaction of top-down and bottom-up brain mechanisms could lead to the observed phenomenology.

Interference between Space and Time Estimations: From Behavior to Neurons.

Abstract: 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.