Deficitary nervous excitability and subjective contraction of time: Time-dispersive model

Abstract

A time-dispersive model of the nervous tissue is used to explain temporal aspects of perception, in relation to the observations and research made by J. Gonzalo [Dinámica Cerebral. Red Temát. Tec. Comput. Natural/Artificial, Univ. Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2010] on human cases with deficitary nervous excitation due to loss of neural mass. In these cases, the cerebral system is less excitable, has a lower reaction time and a slower decay of the cerebral excitation than in a normal case. The model considers the macroscopic excitation response of the neural network involved in the cerebral integration, and contains essential ingredients such as permeability to the excitation of the network and its reaction time. This model accounts for the observed shortening of the perceived duration of a stimulus, the perceived reduction of the lapse between two events, and the lower discrimination between repeated stimuli, when the network of the cerebral system is deficitary. Temporal summation is involved in these effects. The deficit of excitation makes the system more permeable to perception improvement by the presence of other type of stimulus (cross-modal effect due to multisensory integration), or by increasing the intensity of the stimulus, i. e., the cerebral excitation, in which case the subjective contraction of time tends to disappear. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.