January 18th – Virginie van Wassenhove – Making sense of time in the Human mind

Neuroscience Seminar Series

Friday, January 18th. 2018, 11:30 am, R229 (2rd Floor), Centre Universitaire des Saints-Pères, 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris

Virginie van Wassenhove, Directeur de Recherche Inserm NeuroSpin center Gif/Yvette, France

Title: Making sense of time in the Human mind

Video sur MédiasD

Abstract:

While we are all experts in “experiencing time”, introspection provides us with very little intuition regarding the neural mechanisms supporting time perception and temporal cognition. In this talk, I will discuss the importance of clocking mechanisms for the biology of the mind, and how oscillations help reframing temporalities from the perspective of the brain itself (as generator-observer of events) in opposition to that of the external observer (as information reader). I will illustrate this point by focusing on the role of oscillatory activity in low-level temporal logistics of information processing, yielding temporal order and behavioral precision. Second, I will focus on the notion that conscious timing does not linearly map onto neural timing – i.e., temporalities are represented abstractly and intelligibly – and exemplify this with recent work focused on the generative nature of the psychological time arrow (mental time travel), and the ability to introspect about one’s self-generated timing productions (temporal metacognition).

Host: Claire Sergent