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New Clues To How the Brain Maps Time (quantamagazine.org)
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from Quanta Magazine: Our brains have an extraordinary ability to monitor time. A driver can judge just how much time is left to run a yellow light; a dancer can keep a beat down to the millisecond. But exactly how the brain tracks time is still a mystery. Researchers have defined the brain areas involved in movement, memory, color vision and other functions, but not the ones that monitor time. Indeed, our neural timekeeper has proved so elusive that most scientists assume this mechanism is distributed throughout the brain, with different regions using different monitors to keep track of time according to their needs.
Over the last few years, a handful of researchers have compiled growing evidence that the same cells that monitor an individual's location in space also mark the passage of time. This suggests that two brain regions — the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex, both famous for their role in memory and navigation — can also act as a sort of timer.
Over the last few years, a handful of researchers have compiled growing evidence that the same cells that monitor an individual's location in space also mark the passage of time. This suggests that two brain regions — the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex, both famous for their role in memory and navigation — can also act as a sort of timer.
And they stitch sensory input together to provide the illusion of continuity to the various bits. It's the only way the entire system could possibly maintain the level of cohesion it does.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It seems to me that the relativity of time seems to decrease with age and experience. In School five minutes could be an eternity while when you were having fun it went in a flash.
But now when I'm older it seems to me that I have a reasonable time awareness most of the time, waking up when it's time to wake up, knowing that it's time to stop doing what I'm doing when it's time to do something else and so on.
Overall it seems to me that the brain has now linked tasks to time awareness even without really thinking of it. Only rarely when the task at hand requires a very high level of attention it's easy to lose track of time.
The Slashdot quote of the moment seems to fit this subject too: "Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword."
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
is it possible that those areas of the brain are associated with the concept of quantity of any kind (length, weight, number) and that this is just another measure, maybe a count of other neural activity in some way. After all, perception of time seems to vary considerably depending on what's going on.
Nullius in verba
Here's some information on the accuracy of drummers, with and without a click track: http://musicmachinery.com/2009...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
It's not 'assumed' any more than distance is assumed. Our universe has parameters. Light travels at a constant speed, or at a constant distance, or at a constant time - it's all the same, just different perspectives. Distance is a function of time or light, or lightspeed is a function of distance - these are just words the apes trip on as they're trying to understand reality in the terms of forests, railroads, and stars.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Not surprising, but not trivial. This is still pretty big news.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
As a competent-but-not-record-industry-worthy guitarist, I'm frequently stunned by myself when I've been away from the instrument for a bit I start picking out a tune I haven't played in a long time. It just flows, and I almost feel out of control because I can't actually follow and understand what my fingers are doing -- but it's right, even on fast runs.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
...is our brain's ability to portray simultaneity.
If you touch a person's toe and nose at the same time, the speed-of-travel for that signal and significantly different distances that signal travels SHOULD result in a noticeable lag between the two, but doesn't; even when blindfolded, a person feels them at the same time.
How is this possible?
At first glance, one might assume the brain is 'pausing' the nose-signal to wait for the toe-signal. But how does it know to DO this, when it doesn't know that a toe signal is even coming?
The best theory I've heard so far is that EVERY sensory input is delayed for the amount of time it would take the furthest signal to reach the brain, and then assembled into a coherent stream-of-time order as if time-stamped (but AFAIK there's no trace of a time-stamp signal in nerve signals).
-Styopa
Not many of the drivers that I've seen. Light turns red and 3 more cars go zipping through.