The Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science publishes research in a wide range of journals and other scientific publications.
Featured Article
Trial-by-trial predictions of subjective time from human brain activity
Sherman, M.T., Fountas, Z., Seth, A.K., Roseboom, W. (in press) PLOS Computational Biology
Researchers at University of Sussex have revealed that the way in which our brain creates a sense of time may be much simpler than previously thought.
There is a long history of psychologists assuming the brain houses metaphorical ‘clocks’ which track time for us, but Sussex scientists explain that our sense of time isn’t like a clock at all: it varies depending on other aspects of experience such as what we see and hear in that moment or how engaging an activity is. Models of time perception based on ‘inner clocks’ struggle to accommodate these findings.
In a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology, the researchers show that our brains may construct a sense of time simply from information that emerges during processing of sensory information coming from the world around us (see also Roseboom, 2019).
The authors hypothesised that when sensory areas of the brain detect more pertinent, or salient, events then we will feel that more time has elapsed.
The study analysed activity in sensory areas of the brain, recorded while participants watched silent videos and estimated their duration. The authors looked at relatively large changes in brain activity in visual areas – information thought to be the basis for visual processing – and showed that when there were more of these changes, videos felt longer to the participants. Using a computational model, participants’ subjective sense of duration could be successfully reconstructed for each video they watched, purely from their brain activity associated with processing that video.
The study reveals that the information arising during perceptual processing of our dynamic environment provides a sufficient basis for reconstructing human subjective time.
Forthcoming and recent publications
- Barnett, L., Seth, A.K. (2023) Dynamical independence: Discovering emergent macroscopic processes in complex dynamical systems. Phys.Review E
- Dienes, Z., & Lush, P. (2023). The Role of Phenomenological Control in Experience. Current Directions in Psychological Science 0(0)
- Gutknecht, A.J., Barnett, L. (2023) Sampling distribution for single-regression Granger causality estimators. Biometrika
- Otten, M., Seth, A.K., Pinto, Y. (2023) Seeing Ɔ, remembering C: Illusions in short-term memory. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0283257
- Schwartzman, D., Oblak, A, Rothen, N., Bor, D., Seth, A.K. (2023) Extensive Phenomenological Overlap between Training-Induced and Naturally-Occurring Synaesthetic Experiences. Collabra: Psychology 9 (1): 73832
- Skora, L.I., Livermore, J.A., Dienes, Z., Seth, A.K., Scott, R.B. (2023) Feasibility of unconscious instrumental conditioning: A registered replication. Cortex
- Suzuki, K., Mariola, A., Schwartzman, D.J., Seth, A.K. (2023). Using Extended Reality to Study the Experience of Presence. In: Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Bromis, K., Raykov, P., Wickens, L., Roseboom, W., & Bird., C. (in press). The neural representation of events is dominated by elements that are most reliably present. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Fountas, Z., Sylaidi, A., Nikiforou, K., Seth, A.K., Shanahan, M., Roseboom, W. (in press) A predictive processing model of episodic memory and time perception. Neural Computation
- Franken, J.C., Beerendonk, L., Molenaar, D., Fahrenfort, J.J., Kiverstein, J.D., Seth, A.K., van Gaal, S. (in press) An academic survey on theoretical foundations, common assumptions and the current state of consciousness science. Neuroscience of Consciousness.
- Lush, P., Seth, A.K. (2022) Reply to: No specific relationship between hypnotic suggestibility and the rubber hand illusion. Nature Comms 13:56
- Lush P, Seth AK, Dienes Z (in press) Hypothesis awareness confounds asynchronous control conditions in indirect measures of the rubber hand illusion. Royal Society Open Science 8 210911
- Oblak, A., Randall,H. & Schwartzman, D. (2021) “Becoming the Color.” Synesthetic Gesture in a Case Study of Multiple Forms of Synesthesia. Phainomena 30: 118-119
- Mediano, P.A.M., Rosas, F.E., Bor, D., Seth, A.K., Barrett, A.B. (in press) The Strength of Weak Integrated Information Theory. Trends in Cognitive Science
- Mediano, P.A.M., Rosas, F.E., Luppi, A.I., Jensen, H.J., Seth, A.K., Barrett A.B., Carhart-Harris, R.L., Bor, D. (2022) Greater than the parts: A review of the information decomposition approach to causal emergence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
- Moga G, Dienes Z (in press). Expressing unconscious general knowledge using Chevreul’s pendulum. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
- Ramstead, M. J. D., Seth, A. K., Hesp, C., Sandved-Smith, L., Mago, J., Lifshitz, M., . . . Constant, A. (2022). From Generative Models to Generative Passages: A Computational Approach to (Neuro) Phenomenology. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1-29.
- Rosas FE, Mediano PAM, Luppi AI, Jensen HJ, Seth AK, Barrett AB, Carhart-Harris RL, Bor D (2022) Greater than the parts: a review of the information decomposition approach to causal emergence. Phil.Trans. A
- Roseboom, W. & Lush, P. (2022) Serious problems with interpreting rubber hand “illusion” experiments. Collabra: Psychology 8 (1): 32274
- Seth, A.K., Bayne, T. (in press) Theories of consciousness. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience.
- Seth AK, Korbak T, Tschantz A (In press) A continuity of Markov blanket interpretations under the free energy principle. Behavioral and Brain Sciences
- Sherman, M.T., Fountas, Z., Seth, A.K., Roseboom, W. (in press) Trial-by-trial predictions of subjective time from human brain activity. PLOS Computational Biology
- Sherman, M., Wang, H-T., Garfinkel, S.N, Critchley, H.D. (2022) The Cardiac Timing Toolbox (CaTT): Testing for physiologically plausible effects of cardiac timing on behaviour. Biological Psychology 170: 108291
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Tschantz, A., Barcab, L., Maistoc, D., Buckley, C.L., Seth, A.K., Pezzulob, G. (2022) Simulating homeostatic, allostatic and goal-directed forms of interoceptive control using active inference. Biologiical Psychology: 169