scholarly journals Time perception and the experience of agency in meditation and hypnosis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lush ◽  
Zoltan Dienes
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Voluntary Action ◽  
Intentional Binding ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Intention To Move ◽  
Perception Of Time

Mindfulness meditation and hypnosis are related in opposing ways to awareness of intentions. The cold control theory of hypnosis proposes that hypnotic responding involves the experience of involuntariness while performing an actually intentional action. Hypnosis therefore relies upon inaccurate metacognition about intentional actions and experiences. Mindfulness meditation centrally involves awareness of intentions and is associated with improved metacognitive access to intentions. Therefore, mindfulness meditators and highly hypnotisable people may lie at opposite ends of a spectrum with regard to metacognitive access to intention-related information. Here we review the theoretical background and evidence for differences in the metacognition of intentions in these groups, as revealed by chronometric measures of the awareness of voluntary action: the timing of an intention to move (Libet’s ‘W’ judgements) and the compressed perception of time between an intentional action and its outcome (‘intentional binding’). We review these measures and critically evaluate their proposed connection to the experience of volition and sense of agency.

scholarly journals ‘Intentional binding’ without intentional action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisuke Suzuki ◽  
Peter Lush ◽  
Anil Seth ◽  
Warrick Roseboom
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Sense Of Agency ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Implicit Measure ◽  
Intentional Binding ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

The experience of authorship over one’s actions and their consequences - sense of agency - is a fundamental aspect of conscious experience. In recent years, it has become common to use intentional binding as an implicit measure of the sense of agency. However, it remains contentious whether binding effects indicate the role of intention-related information in perception or merely represent a strong case of multisensory causal binding. Here, we use a novel virtual reality setup to demonstrate identical magnitude binding effects both in the presence and complete absence of intentional action, when perceptual stimuli are matched for temporal and spatial information. Our results demonstrate that intentional binding-like effects are most simply accounted for by multisensory causal binding, without necessarily being related to intention or agency. Future studies which relate binding effects to agency must provide evidence for effects beyond that expected for multisensory causal binding by itself.

scholarly journals Intentional Binding Without Intentional Action

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 842-853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisuke Suzuki ◽  
Peter Lush ◽  
Anil K. Seth ◽  
Warrick Roseboom
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Sense Of Agency ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Implicit Measure ◽  
Intentional Binding ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

The experience of authorship over one’s actions and their consequences—sense of agency—is a fundamental aspect of conscious experience. In recent years, it has become common to use intentional binding as an implicit measure of the sense of agency. However, it remains contentious whether reported intentional-binding effects indicate the role of intention-related information in perception or merely represent a strong case of multisensory causal binding. Here, we used a novel virtual-reality setup to demonstrate identical magnitude-binding effects in both the presence and complete absence of intentional action, when perceptual stimuli were matched for temporal and spatial information. Our results demonstrate that intentional-binding-like effects are most simply accounted for by multisensory causal binding without necessarily being related to intention or agency. Future studies that relate binding effects to agency must provide evidence for effects beyond that expected for multisensory causal binding by itself.

Bayesian Inference in Human Time Perception

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Likelihood Function ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
Psychophysical Testing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Dimension ◽  
Perception Of Time

Time is a fundamental dimension of human perception, cognition and action, as the perception and cognition of temporal information is essential for everyday activities and survival. Innumerable studies have investigated the perception of time over the last 100 years, but the neural and computational bases for the processing of time remains unknown. First, we present a brief history of research and the methods used in time perception and then discuss the psychophysical approach to time, extant models of time perception, and advancing inconsistencies between each account that this review aims to bridge the gap between. Recent work has advocated a Bayesian approach to time perception. This framework has been applied to both duration and perceived timing, where prior expectations about when a stimulus might occur in the future (prior distribution) are combined with current sensory evidence (likelihood function) in order to generate the perception of temporal properties (posterior distribution). In general, these models predict that the brain uses temporal expectations to bias perception in a way that stimuli are ‘regularized’ i.e. stimuli look more like what has been seen before. Evidence for this framework has been found using human psychophysical testing (experimental methods to quantify behaviour in the perceptual system). Finally, an outlook for how these models can advance future research in temporal perception is discussed.

Schopenhauer and Hume on Will and Causation

2020 ◽  
pp. 160-174
Author(s):  
Severin Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Voluntary Action ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
Immediate Experience

One aspect of Schopenhauer’s doctrine that the world is will, which can be assessed independently of his more ambitious metaphysical ideas, is the claim that our own agency provides us with a full understanding of causation which then permeates and structures our experience of the world in general. In this chapter, the author argues that this claim can be defended against Hume’s well-known objections because they are based on a volitional theory of voluntary action, which Schopenhauer rightly rejected. Schopenhauer quite plausibly located an immediate experience of causation between at least some kinds of motives and our consequent actions. However, he was wrong in suggesting that this experience might be the source of our understanding of causation since intentional action already presupposes that understanding and cannot provide it. It is more plausible to argue that an understanding of causation is derived from our bodily encounters with material objects.

scholarly journals The Double Intentionality of Moral Intentional Actions: Scotus and Ockham on Interior and Exterior Acts

Topoi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Schierbaum
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Faculty Psychology ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Mind

AbstractAny account of intentional action has to deal with the problem of how such actions are individuated. Medieval accounts, however, crucially differ from contemporary ones in at least three respects: (i) for medieval authors, individuation is not a matter of description, as it is according to contemporary, ‘Anscombian’ views; rather, it is a metaphysical matter. (ii) Medieval authors discuss intentional action on the basis of faculty psychology, whereas contemporary accounts are not committed to this kind of psychology. Connected to the use of faculty psychology is (iii) the distinction between interior and exterior acts. Roughly, interior acts are mental as opposed to physical acts, whereas exterior acts are acts of physical powers, such as of moving one’s body. Of course, contemporary accounts are not committed to this distinction between two ontologically different kinds of acts. Rather, they might be committed to views consistent with physicalist approaches to the mind. The main interpretative task in this paper is to clarify how Scotus and Ockham explain moral intentional action in terms of the role and involvement of these kinds of acts respectively. I argue that Scotus’s account is close to contemporary, ‘Anscombian’ accounts, whereas Ockham’s account is incompatible with them.

scholarly journals Kunst des Wartens – Zeitempfinden in Martin Mosebachs Roman Mogador (2016)

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Sowa
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Leisure Time ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
German Bank ◽  
Perception Of Time ◽  
Bank Employee

Sztuka czekania – percepcja czasu w powieści Mogador (2016) Martina Mosebacha Powieść Martina Mosebacha Mogador konfrontuje dwie kultury. Bohater – młody, odnoszący sukcesy pracownik banku z Niemiec – musi spędzić kilka tygodni w Maroku wśród jego mieszkańców. Musi zmierzyć się z obcymi zwyczajami i innym rytmem życia ludzi, którzy wydają się mieć znacznie więcej czasu i nie muszą poddawać się jego presji. W artykule skupiono się na przedstawieniach percepcji czasu (np. w czasie wolnym, w trakcie posiłków czy oczekiwania), która wydaje się jedną z najważniejszych różnic pomiędzy kulturą europejską a marokańską. Artykuł ma na celu opisanie ludzkiej tęsknoty za godnym przeżywaniem czasu, za tzw. slow life, która wydaje się pragnieniem ukrytym pod niepokojem i szybkością współczesnego świata. Art of Waiting – Perception of Time in Martin Mosebach’s Novel Mogador (2016) Martin Mosebach’s novel Mogador confronts two cultures; the protagonist, a young, successful, German bank employee must spend some weeks in Morocco among the locals. He has to deal with foreign customs and another rhythm of life among people who seem to have much more time and don’t have to subject themselves to the pressure of the clock. The article focuses on the depictions of time perception (e.g. during leisure time, meals, waiting, etc.), which seems to be one of the most important differences between them. The article aims to describe the human longing for dignified handling of time, for slow life, which seems to be a yearning hidden under the anxiety and speed of the modern world.

Understanding the Past, Predicting the Future

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 1490-1497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc J. Buehner
Keyword(s):  
Causal Relation ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Motor Command ◽  
Temporal Binding ◽  
Binding Effect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Ambiguity Reduction ◽  
Special Case

Temporal binding refers to a subjective shortening of elapsed time between actions and their resultant consequences. Originally, it was thought that temporal binding is specific to motor learning and arises as a consequence of either sensory adaptation or the associative principles of the forward model of motor command. Both of these interpretations assume that the binding effect is rooted in the motor system and, critically, that it is driven by intentional action planning. The research reported here demonstrates that both intentional actions and mechanical causes result in temporal binding, which suggests that intentional action is not necessary for temporal binding and that binding results from the causal relation linking actions with their consequences. Intentional binding is thus a special case of more general causal binding, which can be explained by a theory of Bayesian ambiguity reduction.

Age Effects in Perception of Time

2005 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 921-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Wittmann ◽  
Sandra Lehnhoff
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Nonlinear Regression ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Perception Of Time ◽  
Pearson Correlations

Despite the widespread belief that the subjective speed of the passage of time increases with age, empirical results are controversial. In this study, a combination of questionnaires was employed to assess subjective time perception by 499 subjects, ages 14 to 94 years. Pearson correlations and nonlinear regression analyses on a variety of questionnaires and the age of the participants show that the momentary perception of the passage of time and the retrospective judgment of past periods of time are a function of chronological age; however, small-to-moderate effects accounted for at most 10% of the variance. Results generally support the widespread perception that the passage of time speeds up with age. These results are discussed in the context of models of prospective and retrospective time judgment, but interpretations have to be treated with caution given methodological limitations.

On the Relation between Time Perception and the Timing of Motor Action: Evidence for a Temporal Oscillator Controlling the Timing of Movement

1992 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Treisman ◽  
Andrew Faulkner ◽  
Peter L. N. Naish
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Time Perception ◽  
Choice Reaction Time ◽  
Characteristic Frequency ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Time Estimation ◽  
Internal Clock ◽  
Motor Timing ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Perception Of Time

Studies of time estimation have provided evidence that human time perception is determined by an internal clock containing a temporal oscillator and have also provided estimates of the frequency of this oscillator (Treisman, Faulkner, Naish, & Brogan, 1992; Treisman & Brogan, 1992). These estimates were based on the observation that when the intervals to be estimated are accompanied by auditory clicks that recur at certain critical rates, perturbations in time estimation occur. To test the hypothesis that the mechanisms that underlie the perception of time and those that control the timing of motor performance are similar, analogous experiments were performed on motor timing, with the object of seeing whether evidence for a clock would be obtained and if so whether its properties resemble those of the time perception clock. The prediction was made that perturbations in motor timing would be seen at the same or similar critical auditory click rates. The experiments examined choice reaction time and typing. The results support the hypothesis that a temporal oscillator paces motor performance and that this oscillator is similar to the oscillator underlying time perception. They also provide an estimate of the characteristic frequency of the oscillator.

scholarly journals The context-dependent nature of the neural implementation of intentions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebo Uithol ◽  
Kai Görgen ◽  
Doris Pischedda ◽  
Ivan Toni ◽  
John-Dylan Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Essential Feature ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Context Dependency ◽  
Voluntary Action ◽  
Fmri Data ◽  
Experimental Setup ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Neural Processes

AbstractMany studies have identified networks in parietal and prefrontal cortex that are involved in intentional action. Yet, knowledge about what these networks exactly encoded is still scarce. In this study we look into the content of those processes. We ask whether the neural representations of intentions are context- and reason-invariant, or whether these processes depend on the context we are in, and the reasons we have for choosing an action. We use a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivariate decoding to directly assess the context- and reason-dependency of the processes underlying intentional action. We were able to decode action decisions in the same context and for the same reasons from the fMRI data, in line with previous decoding studies. Furthermore, we could decode action decisions across different reasons for choosing an action. Importantly, though, decoding decisions across different contexts was at chance level. These results suggest that for voluntary action, there is considerable context-dependency in intention representations. This suggests that established invariance in neural processes may not reflect an essential feature of a certain process, but that this stable character could be dependent on invariance in the experimental setup, in line with predictions from situated cognition theory.

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