Abstract
We will approach the question of time from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, and question the way in which the brain creates our psychological time. Indeed, our conscious perception of time relies on our brain's ability to internalize dynamic variables from the surrounding world and convert them into mental representations accessible to our consciousness.
The brain is an organ whose various sub-parts - or functional modules - analyze information simultaneously, i.e. in parallel. However, information processing is not necessarily synchronous, and does not always operate on the same time scales in the different cerebral areas. Cerebral chronoarchitecture is thus characterized by sampling and discretization of information, as well as by integration phenomena corresponding to the synchronization of populations of neurons. Given the complexity of temporal phenomena at neuronal level, how can we explain our experience of time, which appears to be continuous and linear? Is the mental representation of continuous time, from past to present to future, an illusion?
The first part of the seminar will describe the time scales relevant to neuronal functioning, seeing time as an intrinsic property of brain function, and to the establishment of a mental representation of time, considering the psychological dimension of time. We will then discuss the phenomena of information discretization within the brain and their consequences for our perception. Finally, we will discuss neuroscientific models of time and how temporal variables might be encoded in the system of mental representations at the origin of temporal cognition.
