An integrative account of psychological time

Theories on how time is perceived often lack integration between clock systems and other cognitive mechanisms. Researchers studying time have identified three broad timescales associated with different empirical phenomena, and assumed to be instantiated in different neural substrates. The authors discuss millisecond timing, involved with low-level motor and speech planning, and circadian timing, involved with the sleep-wake cycle, then focus on phenomena associated with interval timing, which ranges from hundreds of milliseconds to multiple seconds or minutes. They then present the integrative timing model, a computational model that can successfully account for the role of time in many simple and complex tasks. Throughout the chapter, the authors base their discussions of ontologies, phenomena, and models on a combination of theoretical evaluations, behavioral data, and neurobiological findings.