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.

Comments

The relativity of time and learning

[Z00L00K]

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."

Re:Down to the millisecond??? Dubious

[PhunkySchtuff]

Here's some information on the accuracy of drummers, with and without a click track: http://musicmachinery.com/2009...

Re:Down to the millisecond??? Dubious

[Half-pint HAL]

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.