How do we countdown?

[cameron marical]

I was sitting waiting for my fish sticks to beep this morning, and I was counting down the time to the beep in my head, wich made me think, how do we tell time in our head? how do we remember the approximate {or any} amount of time to use inbetween numbers when "stopwatching" something? Is it just a memory associated with numbers that we use when timing things? If we wanted a robot to tell time, we would need something like a clock in it to do so wouldnt we? do we have a clock like this?

 

thanks.

[iNow]

My conjecture is that it has something to do with your heartbeat... phump bhump... phump bhump... one two... three four... five six... It provides a regular "metronome" of sorts.

[Tolmosoff]

The seconds were invented by a person a long time ago but I foregot what method was used. Your heart beat can be timed by a slow heart beat or after running.

If only I can remember the man and after his idea that then was used.

[cameron marical]

But I can count in seconds after a run at the same speed as before I run, {I think, Ill try for my workout tomorrow, but im pretty sure}, so I dont think that it is associated with the heart. We see a clock at work for 3 seconds, and then we can picture that clock in our minds and mimic the seconds go by, does that mean that it is in the brain?

[Fuzzwood]

I dont know, maybe your subconcsious brain knows how long a second takes. You'd be surprised how often you can predict what time it is.

[Phi for All]

Your brain is hardwired to recognize patterns from all your sense receptors. After you've watched and heard enough countdowns (or timed enough breath-holdings, races, etc.), the pattern of "seconds" is well ingrained and you become quite accurate even without the sensory input.

[iNow]

Animals (humans included) have a natural sense of time. There have been studies where rats press a lever after 12 seconds, and will get food, but not if they press it more than one second beyond or before that.

 

There are studies with dogs and their sense of time... parrots... all sorts of stuff.

 

 

There is some sort of biological clock we all have. I think that, instead of thinking about it as "time," it's more intuitive to think about it as "rhythm."

[Phi for All]

Animals (humans included) have a natural sense of time. There have been studies where rats press a lever after 12 seconds, and will get food, but not if they press it more than one second beyond or before that.

 

There are studies with dogs and their sense of time... parrots... all sorts of stuff.

 

 

There is some sort of biological clock we all have. I think that, instead of thinking about it as "time," it's more intuitive to think about it as "rhythm."

I don't see how the concept of time could be "natural". I think it's more a learned response. The rats in the study most likely gain the pattern over time, and learn that a countdown of 12 measured seconds equals food.

 

I agree that it's probably associated with rhythms, which are a pattern after all.

[iNow]

I don't see how the concept of time could be "natural". I think it's more a learned response. The rats in the study most likely gain the pattern over time, and learn that a countdown of 12 measured seconds equals food.

 

I'm not sure I follow your point. If they don't have a natural sense of time, then how can they ever be successful counting down 12 measured seconds? Can you elaborate?

 

 

They do learn, and they learn that after 12 seconds they get a quick nibble. However, what I'm saying is that the neurophysiology must preexist in order for them to ever successfully measure those 12 seconds and be reinforced by the nibble of food. The learning comes with performing a specific action after a specific duration. The learning does not relate to the ability to accurately count the seconds included in that duration.

[Phi for All]

I just don't think it's a natural sense of *time* as much as part of an overall pattern recognition system. iNow, did the studies you referred to use any kind of sensory input, like a flashing light or sound indicator to count down the 12 seconds, or was the food only available after the proscribed waiting period?

[iNow]

iNow, did the studies you referred to use any kind of sensory input, like a flashing light or sound indicator to count down the 12 seconds, or was the food only available after the proscribed waiting period?

 

There have been many different studies, but the one about which I was thinking when I typed that was your second option... the food was only available after the proscribed waiting period... no cues or confounds in the surrounding environment to assist.

 

They call it the "stopwatch mechanism" in most studies.

 

I could probably find some of these studies with some digging, but in the meantime, here's a video which demonstrates something similar (although, in the context of how drugs impact our temporal perception). The entire video is pretty cool, but I'm directing you specifically to the discussion which begins at time point = 4:45.

 

 

RjlpamhrId8

 

 

The video also illuminates this idea of our innate sense of time in humans, and how it's impacted by various hormones flowing through our system.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

Cameron - I don't know why I didn't think of this yesterday when you first asked. Google the term "biological stopwatch" and that should bring up some cool articles for you.

 

 

Here's a search of that term on scholar:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS275&=&q=biological%20stopwatch&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws

[granpa]

why would you think that a sense of time isnt natural. timing is very important to the control of our muscles.

[cameron marical]

But what sets the rythm for us to acknowledge a second? Is their some sort of pendulum like device in our body that we compare according to a second or any other amount of time? Does their need to be? Do we relay the electricity shooting through our brain and use that as a stopwatch like mechanism? What?

[iNow]

The question of "what sets it" is a challenging one, as it it's our biology itself which makes it possible... biology shaped from millions and millions of years of evolution. When asking "what sets it," you (although I'm sure unintentionally) implicitly imply a god-like watch winder. Obviously, there is no such thing. The ability to keep relatively accurate track of time is just simply a part of our biology, related to the functioning of our brain and the maintenance of our internal chemistry.

 

Much of it has to do with circadian rhythms. Be sure to check out the wiki on that if you are not yet familiar. It's also sometimes referred to as the "human clock."

 

 

Here's a story I just happened upon which suggests that this ability to accurately track time is related to the substantia nigra, which helps produce dopamine, and is located in the basal ganglia area of our brains:

 

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n7_v149/ai_18051349/

Musicians have no trouble monitoring a beat. Short-order cooks intuitively flip the burgers before they burn. In a step toward explaining such timing abilities, investigators have found areas in the human brain dedicated to keeping mental track of intervals ranging from seconds to a few hours.

 

That finding has led another group of scientists to discover that people with Parkinson's disease have difficulty using this so-called interval clock.

 

Animals possess a number of biological clocks, the most well known being the circadian clock, which establishes day-long patterns of behavior.

 

The interval clock is less well understood, but researchers contend that the ability to monitor time intervals accurately is vital to learning and memory.

 

For example, the salivating response of a dog to a meal bell depends on its brain's understanding that food will come a short time after a bell is rung.

 

"Time comes into every aspect of an animal's daily life," says Alex Kacelnik of Oxford University in England, who studies interval timing in birds. The interval clock, unlike the circadian clock, is something that people can actively control. "It's much like a stopwatch. You can stop it and start it at will," says John Gibbon of Columbia University. Gibbon and other scientists presented the new findings on the interval clock at a session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Baltimore this week.

 

By giving rats drugs that destroy selected areas of the brain, investigators at Duke University in Durham, N.C., recently discovered several brain regions involved in this clock.

 

The investigators had trained the rats to recognize specific intervals of time by giving them food only when they pressed a lever after a certain period had passed, explains Warren Meck, who headed the research group. After the researchers damaged the substantia nigra, located in an area of the brain known as the basal ganglia, the rats could no longer judge time intervals.

 

The substantia nigra contains brain cells that make the neurotransmitter dopamine. The researchers found they could largely restore the brain-damaged rats' ability to judge intervals by giving them l-dopa, a dopamine-stimulating drug used by Parkinson's patients.

 

With functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a method that reveals the brain regions employed during a task, Meck and his colleagues have also studied college students as they judged time intervals. "The same circuits we measured in rats are selectively activated," Meck says.

 

The work in both rats and humans suggests that the substantia nigra acts as a metronome, sending a steady stream of dopamine pulses to another brain region called the striatum. A third part of the brain, the frontal cortex, appears to complete the interval clock's neural circuit. <

more at the link

>

 

 

Btw... I've noticed lately you showing a strong interest in neurobiology. It might be something to explore further as you continue in your studies. Cheers.

[cameron marical]

Ya, thanks. I migrate through all feilds of science over time. I just hope I find the right one for me so I can stick with one.

[Phi for All]

why would you think that a sense of time isnt natural. timing is very important to the control of our muscles.

I don't think the concept of counting down seconds (for fish sticks or food pellets or what have you) is natural because "seconds" are artificial, a pattern humans have made up to measure time. Time itself is naturally occurring, but I think the measurement of it is a learned response.

 

The first posts were all talking about counting seconds, and then jumped from that being natural to a sense of time being innate. I think I got strawmanned and didn't realize it. My bad.

[iNow]

I don't think the concept of counting down seconds (for fish sticks or food pellets or what have you) is natural because "seconds" are artificial, a pattern humans have made up to measure time. Time itself is naturally occurring, but I think the measurement of it is a learned response.

I'm still struggling to understand where you're drawing this line in the sand. I completely agree with you that he concept of a second is an arbitrary duration which we humans have made up to measure time. I also agree that time is naturally occurring.

 

The sticking point, though, is that the question related to our internal ability to... without external environmental cues... measure durations themselves... regardless of how we define said durations.

 

As I understood the OP, the question was about "what in our biology allows us to accurately measure elapsed time." IINM, the question was not, "how do rats and people know what a second is, and is this innate." I quite agree with your point that the specific duration of "second" is learned. Where I disagree is that we "learn" the ability to internally track and measure elapsed time itself.

 

I get the sense that we're closer on this than it appears, and this is a word choice issue more than anything else.

 

 

 

The first posts were all talking about counting seconds, and then jumped from that being natural to a sense of time being innate. I think I got strawmanned and didn't realize it.

If that's the case, then I sincerely apologize, as it was most definitely not my intention to misrepresent you or your position on this topic.

[Phi for All]

I'm still struggling to understand where you're drawing this line in the sand.

It's not really as vivid as you make it sound.

 

The sticking point, though, is that the question related to our internal ability to... without external environmental cues... measure durations themselves... regardless of how we define said durations.

Agreed, and this is what I attribute to our pattern recognition ability, rather than some separate duration measurement ability. It seems to me that we learn to measure seconds, minutes, hours, etc, as patterns just as we learn any other familiar pattern, and that's why they don't seem tied to heartbeat or other functions that can be altered by varying our activity level.

 

As I understood the OP, the question was about "what in our biology allows us to accurately measure elapsed time." IINM, the question was not, "how do rats and people know what a second is, and is this innate." I quite agree with your point that the specific duration of "second" is learned. Where I disagree is that we "learn" the ability to internally track and measure elapsed time itself.

Then I see where we diverged. The OP mentioned beeps on a microwave and putting clocks in robots, so I naturally assumed he meant time measured in seconds and minutes. It seems our patterns didn't converge well this time.

[MrWrong]

I think it all evolved from a base desire to quantify things.

 

Evolutionary idea.....

 

Body language, to barks and squeaks, to naming of objects, to counting objects, to creating an alphabet (i.e. Hebrew Alphabet is also numbers, Alef, Bet, Gimel...so on) to classifying and identifying to mathematics, to measuring, observing, quantifying, etc etc.

 

However, we do seem to be creatures of rhythm as most creatures have rhythm in some sort.

 

This may be tied into "Circadian rhythm" biological clocks etc. In seconds, some say "Mississippi" some say "One-one thousand", personally Mississippi is shorter....for me anyway.

 

Regardless, I wake up every morning before my alarm goes off. Something is keeping track of time inside my head subconsciously at least.

[GDG]

We have (or can develop) a very accurate sense of rhythm and tempo -- to the point where good orchestra conductor will perform a 45 minute symphony repeatedly and come out within seconds of the same duration each time. Counting seconds is just a particular tempo (60 beats per minute).

[JPGreco]

I don't think this situation has anything to do with an internal rythym. Over time, you've learned how long a second is. How to count it accurately by applying a rythym to your counting. Its the same way a carpenter can look at something and estimate its lenght very closely without actually measuring it or how by picking things up, a person can accurately weigh it. Its a learned application of measurements. The more a person applies it, the better they are at it.

Someone who has never learned what a second is can't naturally apply an internal rythym to counting seconds, unless they are lucky and their heart beats at one second intervals.

 

However, I don't know who divised the "second", so if it is based on something internal, then we do have an innate rythym that naturally counts it off. But as stated, even after intense exercise, a person can still count of time accurately, so then its something derived from an internal rythym, that is learned and can then be applied without that rythym being present.

[cameron marical]

However, I don't know who divised the "second", so if it is based on something internal, then we do have an innate rythym that naturally counts it off. But as stated, even after intense exercise, a person can still count of time accurately, so then its something derived from an internal rythym, that is learned and can then be applied without that rythym being present.

 

From Inows links, I think its more of a set rythm of releases of chemicals from the substantia nigra, and we compare that to amounts of time {like seconds, or minutes}

 

Posted by Inow:

Much of it has to do with circadian rhythms. Be sure to check out the wiki on that if you are not yet familiar. It's also sometimes referred to as the "human clock."

 

Here's a story I just happened upon which suggests that this ability to accurately track time is related to the substantia nigra, which helps produce dopamine, and is located in the basal ganglia area of our brains:

[GDG]

I don't think this situation has anything to do with an internal rythym. Over time, you've learned how long a second is. How to count it accurately by applying a rythym to your counting. Its the same way a carpenter can look at something and estimate its lenght very closely without actually measuring it or how by picking things up, a person can accurately weigh it. Its a learned application of measurements. The more a person applies it, the better they are at it.

Someone who has never learned what a second is can't naturally apply an internal rythym to counting seconds, unless they are lucky and their heart beats at one second intervals.

 

However, I don't know who divised the "second", so if it is based on something internal, then we do have an innate rythym that naturally counts it off. But as stated, even after intense exercise, a person can still count of time accurately, so then its something derived from an internal rythym, that is learned and can then be applied without that rythym being present.

 

Read "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks. It turns out that if you know a song, you also know its rhythm and tempo -- very accurately, even if you are not a musician.

 

It is obviously not based on your heartbeat, which changes 2X or more depending on your activity. Your subjective feeling of "how long a second is" also varies widely, depending on whether you're waiting in line, doing something absorbing, etc. Just guessing how long a second is turns out to be notoriously inaccurate.

 

If you want an accurate way to count seconds, just find a song you know well that has a tempo of 60 bpm (or 120, or 180). I think many people use the music from "Jeopardy"