Ep33 "Why do they start sprinters with a bang instead of a flash?"
Nov 6, 2023
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Delve into the mysteries of time perception with David Eagleman as he explores the use of a gun at the Olympics, the challenges our brains face in accurately perceiving time, the potential for using a flash of light to start a race, and how the brain synchronizes sensory information to create our conscious perception of the world. Discover the phenomenon of temporal recalibration, its connection to schizophrenia, and the potential implications for understanding the brain's construction of reality.
The brain actively synchronizes sensory signals from different senses by recalibrating its timing, which helps construct a unified perception of the world.
Perception always lags behind reality due to the time it takes for sensory signals to be processed, but the brain compensates by synchronizing the perception of events through editing tricks.
Deep dives
The Brain's Timing Tricks
The brain actively synchronizes sensory signals from different senses by recalibrating its timing. It adjusts to delays by expecting simultaneous feedback when it causes an action. This recalibration helps the brain determine causality and construct a unified perception of the world. In an experiment where participants pressed a button to trigger a flash of light, the brain adjusted to a delay and perceived synchronicity. However, when the delay was removed, participants felt that the flash occurred before they pressed the button, demonstrating an illusory reversal of action and effect. This phenomenon has implications in understanding schizophrenia, where impaired timing recalibration may contribute to symptoms like credit misattribution and auditory hallucinations.
The Perception Lag
Perception always lags behind reality due to the time it takes for sensory signals to be processed. The brain constructs conscious awareness based on gathered sensory information, but this information arrives at different speeds. For example, during the detonation of a nuclear bomb, the light reaches observers much faster than the sound. However, the brain compensates for these differences, synchronizing the perception of events. This explains why observers of the bomb explosion experienced a significant delay before hearing the blast. Similarly, visual and auditory information in everyday situations are carefully synchronized by the brain using editing tricks to maintain a coherent perception of the world.
Recalibrating Timing for Reality
The brain actively recalibrates its timing based on sensory input to accurately judge causality. Through interaction with the world, the brain adjusts its expected timing for signals, synchronizing perceptions of touch, sight, and sound. This constant recalibration is crucial in determining whether an action caused a certain event or vice versa. However, in conditions like schizophrenia, timing recalibration may be impaired, leading to symptoms such as credit misattribution and auditory hallucinations. Calibrating timing is an essential aspect of an individual's perception and understanding of the world around them.
Active Timing Adjustment for Perception
The brain actively adjusts its timing to synchronize incoming sensory information from different senses. By causing an action and expecting simultaneous feedback, the brain calibrates its expected time for signals to arrive. This allows for an accurate perception of causality and helps overcome timing differences in sensory processing. In experiments where participants pressed a button to trigger a flash of light, the brain adjusted its timing to maintain the perception of synchronicity. This recalibration is crucial in creating a coherent and unified perception of the world, even though the brain's perception always lags behind reality.
Why do they use a gun at the Olympics? And why can you get off the blocks after the bang but still be disqualified for jumping the gun? Few things are as bizarre as our time perception. From sprinters to basketball players, from Kubla Khan to Oppenheimer, from television broadcasting to hallucinations, Eagleman unmasks illusions of time that surround us. Why does the brain work so hard to pull off editing tricks? And what does this tell us about our perception of reality?
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