Time perception

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

Time Perception: A Test of Weber's Law in Possums

Abstract: The performance of brushtail possums, Trichosurus vulpecula, was investigated in two experiments that used the peak procedure to investigate their ability to time. For Experiment 1 five possums lever pressed for food reinforcers on 3 different Fixed Interval (FI) schedules that included FI 15-s, FI 30-s and FI 60-s. The possums also experienced Peak Interval (PI) schedules that did not provide reinforcement for 20% of trials. The PI trials were 3 times longer than the FI schedule that was in effect on the other 80% of trials when responding was reinforced. Response rates increased to a maximum at about the time the responses were normally reinforced on FI trials and then decreased to a minimum at around 2 times the FI schedule duration that was in effect on a given condition. When relative response rates were plotted as a function of relative time the distributions generally superposed for the ascending, but not descending portions of the function. There was evidence of resurgence in response rates towards the end of the PI trials. The amount of resurgence appeared to be a function of the amount of experience animals had with the schedule and decreased across days, however, it was never eliminated. In Experiment 2, five possums lever pressed for food reinforcers on an FI 30-s schedule. Once again on 80% of trials responding was reinforced. For the other 20% of trials, responding was not reinforced and trials lasted either 3 (Experiment 2, Condition 1) or 10 (Experiment 2, Condition 2) times longer than the FI schedule that was in effect, and these extinction trials ended automatically when the specific time had passed. Resurgence was still evident at the end of the PI trials when they were 3 times longer than the FI, but decreased dramatically when they were 10 times longer than the FI that was in effect, resulting in the conclusion that that resurgence was dependent on the duration of the PI trials.

Development and relationship between the judgment of the speed of passage of time and the judgment of duration in children

Abstract: This study examined the relationships between the awareness of the speed of the passage of time, the judgment of durations and experiential factors in children aged 4–9 years. They were asked to judge the duration and the speed of the passage of time for different intervals (second and minutes), and to rate their feelings (arousal, happiness, sadness, and task difficulty) during each interval. The results indicated that 8–9-year-olds’ judgment of the passage of time is extremely flexible and context-dependent, representing the duration and/or the individual changes in subjective experience (emotion). In contrast, young children’s judgment of the passage of time was not related to duration. However, their judgments were not given randomly. They judged that time passed more quickly when they felt happier and more alert. The passage-of-time judgment was therefore initially grounded in emotional and sensory-motor experience, i.e., in their perception of changes (acceleration and deceleration) in self-movement (successions of states and their extension). Therefore, duration judgment and passage-of-time judgment initially develop separately and are later combined when children understand the logical link between speed and duration.

Teaching Robots to Perceive Time: A Twofold Learning Approach

Abstract: The concept of time perception is used to describe the phenomenological experience of time. There is strong evidence that dopaminergic neurons are involved in the timing mechanisms responsible for time perception. The phasic activity of these neurons resembles the behavior of the reward prediction error in temporal-difference learning models. Therefore, these models are used to replicate the neuronal behaviour of the dopamine system and corresponding timing mechanisms. However, time perception has also been shown to be shaped by time estimation mechanisms from external stimuli. In this paper we propose a framework that combines these two principles, in order to provide temporal cognition abilities to intelligent systems such as robots. A time estimator based on observed environmental stimuli is combined with a reinforcement learning approach, using a feature representation called Microstimuli to replicate dopaminergic behaviour. The elapsed time perceived by the robot is estimated by modeling sensor measurements as Gaussian processes to capture the second-order statistics of the natural environment. The proposed framework is evaluated on a simulated robot that performs a temporal discrimination task originally performed by mice. The ability of the robot to replicate the timing mechanisms of the mice is demonstrated by the fact that both exhibit the same ability to classify the duration of intervals.

A proxy measure of striatal dopamine predicts individual differences in temporal precision

Abstract: Abstract The perception of time is characterized by pronounced variability across individuals, with implications for a diverse array of psychological functions. The neurocognitive sources of this variability are poorly understood, but accumulating evidence suggests a role for inter-individual differences in striatal dopamine levels. Here we present a pre-registered study that tested the predictions that spontaneous eyeblink rates, which provide a proxy measure of striatal dopamine availability, would be associated with aberrant interval timing (lower temporal precision or overestimation bias). Neurotypical adults ( N = 69) underwent resting state eye tracking and completed visual psychophysical interval timing and control tasks. Elevated spontaneous eyeblink rates were associated with poorer temporal precision but not with inter-individual differences in perceived duration or performance on the control task. These results signify a role for striatal dopamine in variability in human time perception and can help explain deficient temporal precision in psychiatric populations characterized by elevated dopamine levels.

Slowhand: Does time perception change in peri-hand space?

Abstract: A variety of attentional and perceptual changes occur in peri-hand space, including increases in visual temporal acuity. These changes in cognition have been related to an increase in magnocellular visual processing. Other magnocellular-related processes have been shown to enhance temporal sensitivity and lead to time overestimation. We hypothesized that a similar slowing of time perception would occur in peri-hand space. To this end, we had participants complete either a temporal bisection task or a verbal time estimation task with their hands near to or far from the test stimuli. Contrary to our predictions, we found no differences in time perception in peri-hand space. We situate our findings within the context of a contemporaneous study by Qi, Wang, He, and Du (2019), which produced conflicting results when using a temporal reproduction task to investigate the same phenomenon. The disparate results might relate to the fragility of peri-hand effects and/or to the tasks tapping into different aspects of time perception. Further research will be needed to fully elucidate the nuances of peri-hand space and temporal processing.