Page 123 - It' about time: Studying the Encoding of Duration

Chapter 6 tuned mechanism in duration perception on a wider scale. Future work should aim to further formalize the duration channel model so that it allows for more precise predictions about timing behavior in novel circumstances while at the same time allowing for more direct comparisons with the existing literature. Consolidating the duration channel model with other models of duration perception from the previous paragraph, is should be clear that there is a need for additional work aimed at integrating the duration channel model into our overall understanding of duration perception. However, I would like to emphasize that this does not mean that future research should aim to adapt and expand the duration channel model to encompass all findings in the duration perception literature. In some cases, key properties of the model or experimental findings will simply be incompatible with other findings described in the literature. For example, one of the key features of using population responses to encode a feature is that the population response is insensitive to absolute changes in stimulus saliency or intensity. This means that duration channels are simply unsuited to explain effects of stimulus intensity (Matthews, Stewart, & Wearden, 2011; Rammsayer & Verner, 2015; Xuan et al., 2007) or predictability (Pariyadath & Eagleman, 2007; Ulrich et al., 2006) on perceived duration. Similarly, studies that demonstrate that the duration encoded by duration-tuned mechanisms does not necessarily reflect the duration eventually reported by the observer (Heron et al., 2013; Chapter 4), argue that other factors influence our perception of duration independently of these duration-tuned mechanisms. In other words, it is naïve to assume that all timing behavior can or should be explained in terms of the duration channel model. Instead, it seems more fruitful to accept the idea that timing is unlikely to rely on a single mechanism, but rather consists of more distributed processes that contribute to our timing behavior. These processes could either be hierarchically structured operating by integrating output from preceding systems, or by operating separately, with different systems fulfilling similar roles under different circumstances. Similar ideas have been put forward in the past (Bruno & Cicchini, 2016; van Wassenhove, 2009; Wiener, Matell, & Coslett, 2011), based on studies that provide empirical basis for a distributed view of duration processing. For one, a wide range of cortical and subcortical areas have been implicated in the processing of duration information (see for example: Hayashi et al., 122