Judging Passage and Passing Judgment: From Distrusting the Present to an Error Dynamics Account of Passage of Time Judgments

People often judge whether time is passing quickly or slowly, yet the brain mechanisms behind these judgments are poorly understood. A leading explanation from predictive processing theory suggests that the speed of experienced time depends on how rapidly the perceptual system abandons its current hypothesis about the present. This account fails to explain existing experimental data and has internal flaws. An alternative theory proposes that the sense of time moving quickly arises when the cognitive system unconsciously detects that it is reducing prediction error faster than expected; time feels slow when prediction error is reduced slower than expected. This new model is internally consistent and can account for key empirical findings.

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Abstract

Abstract Despite our proclivity to make either tacit or overt passage of time judgments in daily life, insufficient work has been done to uncover the neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning such determinations. A prima facie promising account of passage of time judgments derives from the predictive processing framework. More precisely, Hohwy et al. (2016) propose that the reported speed of the experienced passage of time is a function of how rapidly the perceptual system "distrusts the present" current perceptual hypothesis in favour of a new one. We will propose that this account suffers from an incapacity to explain the relevant empirical data related to passage of time judgments and also possesses its own internal shortcomings. In its place, we offer a predictive processing theory of passage of time judgments based on "error dynamics", according to which the sense of time moving quickly is grounded in the cognitive system’s subdoxastic detection that it is minimising prediction error at a faster rate than it expected. If, on the other hand, prediction error is being minimised at a slower rate than expected, time will be sensed to be moving slowly, and a more protracted PoTJ will be reported. We will demonstrate the internal consistency of this proposition, as well as its ability to account for the key empirical findings any model of passage of time judgments ought to explain.