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Many experiences unfold predictably over time. Memory for these temporal regularities enables anticipation of events multiple steps into the future. Because temporally predictable events repeat over days, weeks, and years, we must maintain—and potentially transform—memories of temporal structure to support adaptive behavior. We explored how individuals build durable models of temporal regularities to guide multistep anticipation. Healthy young adults (Experiment 1: N = 99, age range = 18–40 years; Experiment 2: N = 204, age range = 19–40 years) learned sequences of scene images that were predictable at the category level and contained incidental perceptual details. Individuals then anticipated upcoming scene categories multiple steps into the future, immediately and at a delay. Consolidation increased the efficiency of anticipation, particularly for events further in the future, but diminished access to perceptual features. Further, maintaining a link-based model of the sequence after consolidation improved anticipation accuracy. Consolidation may therefore promote efficient and durable models of temporal structure, thus facilitating anticipation of future events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that mental events unfold over time with an intrinsically paced regularity has a long history within experimental psychology, and it has gained traction from the actual measurement of brain rhythms evident in EEG signals recorded from the human brain and from direct recordings of action potentials and local field potentials within the nervous systems of nonhumans. The weak link in this idea, however, is the challenge of extracting signatures of this temporal structure from behavioral measures. Because there is nothing in the seamless stream of conscious awareness that belies rhythmic modulations in sensitivity or mental acuity, one must deploy inferential strategies for extracting evidence for the existence of temporal regularities in neural activity. We have devised a parametric procedure for analysis of temporal structure embedded in behaviorally measured data comprising durations. We confirm that this procedure, dubbed PATS, achieves comparable results to those obtained using spectral analysis, and that it outperforms conventional spectral analysis when analyzing human response time data containing just a few hundred data points per condition. PATS offers an efficient, sensitive means for bridging the gap between oscillations identified neurophysiologically and estimates of rhythmicity embedded within durations measured behaviorally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How we perceive the physical world is not only organized in terms of objects, but also structured in time as sequences of events. This is especially evident in intuitive physics, with temporally bounded dynamics such as falling, occlusion, and bouncing demarcating the continuous flow of sensory inputs. While the spatial structure and attentional consequences of physical objects have been well-studied, much less is known about the temporal structure and attentional consequences of physical events in visual perception. Previous work has recognized physical events as units in the mind, and used presegmented object interactions to explore physical representations. However, these studies did not address whether and how perception imposes the kind of temporal structure that carves these physical events to begin with, and the attentional consequences of such segmentation during intuitive physics. Here, we use performance-based tasks to address this gap. In Experiment 1, we find that perception not only spontaneously separates visual input in time into physical events, but also, this segmentation occurs in a nonlinear manner within a few hundred milliseconds at the moment of the event boundary. In Experiment 2, we find that event representations, once formed, use coarse "look ahead" simulations to selectively prioritize those objects that are predictively part of the unfolding dynamics. This rich temporal and predictive structure of physical event representations, formed during vision, should inform models of intuitive physics. Public Significance Statement: Despite the continuous flow of sensory inputs, our perceptual experiences are deeply structured in space in terms of objects and in time in terms of events. In many ways, most research in visual perception has focused on half of this structure: objects. To help reveal the structure of the other half, we turn to intuitive physics—our ability to see and predict how scenes react to forces—where events are especially evident. In intuitive physics, we do not just see objects with certain physical properties occupying certain places, but we experience dynamic patterns of interactions, for example, falling, colliding, bouncing, and entering and exiting containers. In two experiments with human observers, we synthesize methods and theories across the studies of attention, music cognition, seeing, and thinking, and find that the visual system spontaneously marks physical events at subsecond timescales and prioritizes objects relevant to the ongoing event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between integration and awareness is central to contemporary theories and research on consciousness. Here, we investigated whether and how information integration over time, by incorporating the underlying regularities, contributes to our awareness of the dynamic world. Using binocular rivalry, we demonstrated that structured visual streams, constituted by shape, motion, or idiom sequences containing perceptual‐ or semantic‐level regularities, predominated over their nonstructured but otherwise matched counterparts in the competition for visual awareness. Despite the apparent resemblance, a substantial dissociation of the observed rivalry advantages emerged between perceptual‐ and semantic‐level regularities. These effects stem from nonconscious and conscious temporal integration processes, respectively, with the former but not the latter being vulnerable to perturbations in the spatiotemporal integration window. These findings corroborate the essential role of structure‐guided information integration in visual awareness and highlight a multi‐level mechanism where temporal integration by perceptually and semantically defined regularities fosters the emergence of continuous conscious experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study describes elements of the daily spatial and time systems relating to online home-based primary education during the pandemic school closures. It was conducted from the children's perspective (semi-structured interviews with children), which is only marginally discussed in research on the effects of home-based education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The spatial recontextualization of the household and home, brought about through the transference of school functions to the home environment, cannot be viewed in isolation from the temporal recontextualization. The results point to a fundamental shift in the nature and functionality of educational space and time during the pandemic school closures and online home-based education. It changed not only the home and its time–space structures but also the educational space–time structures. These changes are described and discussed in relation to time-geography concepts and cultural analysis. Moreover, our data show that the children were able to develop strategies for adapting to and coping with the new educational situation and spatial–temporal context during the pandemic-driven shift to home-based education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how sedimentary rocks represent time is one of the significant challenges in sedimentology. Sedimentation rates retrieved from vertical sections are strongly timescale dependent, which means that we cannot use empirical rate data derived from vertical sections in modern environments to interpret the temporal structure of ancient sedimentary deposits. We use the Lower to Middle Campanian Blackhawk Formation deposits in eastern Utah and western Colorado as a natural laboratory to test a source‐to‐sink methodology circumventing this timescale dependence by relating modern progradation rates to the deltaic shoreline progradation of ancient siliciclastic rocks. Our objective is to quantify how much time is needed to account for the observed cumulative deltaic shoreline progradation recorded by the shallow‐marine sandstone bodies of the Blackhawk Formation in terms of progradation rates derived from comparable modern deltaic systems. By making the simplifying assumption that the Blackhawk Formation rocks were deposited along a linear coastline that only grew by aggradation and progradation, it is possible to argue that the stratigraphic completeness of two‐dimensional dip‐oriented stratigraphic cross‐sections through these deposits should be high. Furthermore, we hypothesise that delta progradation estimates capture a significant portion of the biostratigraphically and radiometrically constrained duration of the succession. By comparing the recorded progradation with modern progradation rates, we estimate that we need ca. 20% (median value, with minimum and maximum estimates of 2% and 300%) of the time available from biostratigraphic and radiometric dating to account for the progradation recorded by the sedimentary deposits. This indicates that long‐term progradation rates averaged over the entire duration of the Blackhawk Formation were only a factor of five times slower than the modern progradation rates derived from observations over periods that are five to six orders of magnitude shorter. We conclude that a significant amount of time is represented by prograding deltaic shoreline deposits and that by considering the cumulative shoreline progradation, we could limit the effects of timescale dependence on the rate estimates used in our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of event knowledge plays a critical role in prediction, reconstruction of memory for personal events, construction of possible future events, action, language usage, and social interactions. Despite numerous theoretical proposals such as scripts, schemas, and stories, the highly variable and rich nature of events and event knowledge have been formidable barriers to characterizing the structure of event knowledge in memory. We used network science to provide insights into the temporal structure of common events. Based on participants' production and ordering of the activities that make up events, we established empirical profiles for 80 common events to characterize the temporal structure of activities. We used the event networks to investigate multiple issues regarding the variability in the richness and complexity of people's knowledge of common events, including: the temporal structure of events; event prototypes that might emerge from learning across many experiential instances and be expressed by people; the degree to which scenes (communities) are present in various events; the degree to which people believe certain activities are central to an event; how centrality might be distributed across an event's activities; and similarities among events in terms of their content and their temporal structure. Thus, we provide novel insights into human event knowledge, and describe 18 predictions for future human studies. • Human event knowledge is key to many aspects of cognition, perception, and social interaction. • We used network science to provide insights into theoretically central aspects of events. • Included richness of temporal structure, existence of scenes in events, and activity centrality. • Novel network-based approach enabled viewing these issues in new ways. • Investigated similarities among events in terms of their content and their temporal structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the sequential patterns of self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviors is gaining popularity to understand students’ performance differences. However, few studies have looked at the transition probabilities among different SRL behaviors. Moreover, there is a lack of research investigating the temporal structures of students’ SRL behaviors (e.g., repetitiveness and predictability) and how they related to students’ performance. In this study, 75 students from a top North American university were tasked to diagnose a virtual patient in an intelligent tutoring system. We used recurrence quantification analysis and sequential analysis to analyze the temporal structures and sequential patterns of students’ SRL behaviors. We compared the differences between low and high performers. We found that low performers had more single, isolated recurrent behaviors in problem-solving, whereas the recurrent behaviors of high performers were more likely to be part of a behavioral sequence. High performers also demonstrated a higher transition probability across the three phases of SRL than low performers. In addition, high performers were unique in that their behavioral state transitions were cyclically sustained. This study provided researchers with theoretical insights regarding the cyclical nature of SRL. This study has also methodological contributions to the analysis of the temporal structures of SRL behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to distinguish emotions such as envy, disgust, and shame from sentiments such as love, hate, and adoration? While the standard approach argues that emotions and sentiments differ in terms of their temporal structures (e.g., Ben-ze'ev, 2000; Deonna & Teroni, 2012), this paper sketches an alternative approach according to which each of these states exhibits a distinctive intentional structure. More precisely, this paper argues that emotions and sentiments exhibit distinct forms of affective intentionality. The paper begins by examining the temporal criteria of duration, etiology, and phenomenology widely employed to distinguish between both states. It demonstrates that none of them provides a clear-cut distinction between emotions and sentiments. Next, it presents the intentional approach as an alternative. To this end, it discusses what I call the axiological account (De Monticelli's 2006; 2020), before introducing my version of the intentional approach according to which emotions and sentiments exhibit different forms of affective intentionality. The main findings are summarized in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The across-trial correlation of neurons' coactivity patterns emerges to be important for information coding, but methods for finding their temporal structures remain largely unexplored. In the present study, we propose a method to find time clusters in which coactivity patterns of neurons are correlated across trials. We transform the multidimensional neural activity at each timing into a coactivity pattern of binary states, and predict the coactivity patterns at different timings. We devise a method suitable for these coactivity pattern predictions, call general event prediction. Cross-temporal prediction accuracy is then used to estimate across-trial correlations between coactivity patterns at two timings. We extract time clusters from the cross-temporal prediction accuracy by a modified k-means algorithm. The feasibility of the proposed method is verified through simulations based on ground truth. We apply the proposed method to a calcium imaging dataset recorded from the motor cortex of mice, and demonstrate time clusters of motor cortical coactivity patterns during a motor task. While the existing cosine similarity method, which does not account for across-trial correlation, shows temporal structures only for contralateral neural responses, the proposed method reveals those for both contralateral and ipsilateral neural responses, demonstrating the effect of across-trial correlations. This study introduces a novel method for measuring the temporal structure of neuronal ensemble activity. [Display omitted] • We proposed a method to find temporal structures in neuronal coactivity patterns. • We examined temporal structures based on across-trial correlations. • Across-trial correlation was measured by coactivity event prediction across time. • We applied the proposed method to motor cortical population activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain waves, determined by electrical and magnetic brain recordings (e.g., EEG and MEG), and fluctuating behavioral responses, determined by response time or accuracy measures, are frequently taken to support discrete perception. For example, it has been proposed that humans experience only one conscious percept per brain wave (e.g., during one alpha cycle). However, the proposed link between brain waves and discrete perception is typically rather vague. More importantly, there are many models and aspects of discrete perception and it is often not apparent in what theoretical framework brain wave findings are interpreted and to what specific aspects of discrete perception they relate. Here, we review different approaches to discrete perception and highlight issues with particular interpretations. We then discuss how certain findings on brain waves may relate to certain aspects of discrete perception. The main purpose of this meta‐contribution is to give a short overview of discrete models of perception and to illustrate the need to make explicit what aspects of discrete theories are addressed by what aspects of brain wave findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effect of area size (434, 636, and 838m) and effort-pause ratio (free combat, 2:1 and 3:1) on the physiological and perceptive responses during female judo combats. Twelve female judo athletes (mean6SD: age: 17.160.4 years; height: 16067 cm; body mass: 59.8611.5 kg; body fat: 25.765.5%; and judo experience: 8.460.5 years) volunteered to perform nine 4-minute randoris randomly determined. Blood lactate [La] before and after combats, heart rate before combat (HRpre), mean HR (HRmean), peak HR (HRpeak), and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) immediately after the combats were assessed for each condition. Results showed that [La] pre and HR values did not differ according to time structure and area sizes (p .0.05). However, [La] post was higher on free randori compared with 3:1 ratio (p50.006) and in the 434-m area compared with 6 36-m (p,0.001) and 838-m (p50.036) areas. Moreover, RPE was higher in the 434mcompared with 838 m (p50.038). In conclusion, combining time structure and area sizes may alter physiological and perceptual responses during female judo randori. Moreover, combat-based exercises may be effective in preparing athletes to cope with physiological and technical demands of the combat by stressing properly the energy systems solicited during official competitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to investigate aspectual value of secondary aspectual verb phrase in Serbian in terms of both grammatical and lexical aspect (Aktionsart). The present analysis focuses on two secondary aspectualizers krenuti and stati, which when used as lexical verbs have the opposite meanings related to motion in space, but when they appear as phase construction heads both verbs modify the opening segment of the aspectual event. The central idea of the proposal is that event types in general largely depend on temporal structures which need to be contextualized before they are formally identifiable. In other words, contrary to traditional approaches which define lexical aspect as inherent to verb meaning, we claim that each verb form (or any lexical and/or grammatical form for that matter) has an underlying meaning through which it entertains systematic relations with other forms in a language (Hirtle 1982:40). We start from aspectual and Aktionsart features of krenuti and stati as verb lexemes, then move onto the level of syntax to identify the cocompositional aspect of the overall phase construction via event structure and event segmentation mechanisms. Finally, the present paper aims to examine different uses of the two secondary aspectual verbs, along with the different types of events they can denote in order to bring to light the potential meanings which give rise to the various contextual senses of the aspectual construction. The reported results of the analysis were checked on the Corpus of Contemporary Serbian Language (SrpKor 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal genetic studies of low‐dispersing organisms are rare. Marine invertebrates lacking a planktonic larval stage are expected to have lower dispersal, low gene flow, and a higher potential for local adaptation than organisms with planktonic dispersal. Leptasterias is a genus of brooding sea stars containing several cryptic species complexes. Population genetic methods were used to resolve patterns of fine‐scale population structure in central California Leptasterias species using three loci from nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Historic samples (collected between 1897 and 1998) were compared to contemporary samples (collected between 2008 and 2014) to delineate changes in species distributions in space and time. Phylogenetic analysis of contemporary samples confirmed the presence of a bay‐localized clade and revealed the presence of an additional bay‐localized and previously undescribed clade of Leptasterias. Analysis of contemporary and historic samples indicates two clades are experiencing a constriction in their southern range limit and suggests a decrease in clade‐specific abundance at sites at which they were once prevalent. Historic sampling revealed a dramatically different distribution of diversity along the California coastline compared to contemporary sampling and illustrates the importance of temporal genetic sampling in phylogeographic studies. These samples were collected prior to significant impacts of Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD) and represent an in‐depth analysis of genetic structure over 117 years prior to the SSWD‐associated mass die‐off of Leptasterias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tactile stimuli can be distinguished based on their temporal features (e.g., duration, local frequency, and number of pulses), which are fundamental for vibrotactile frequency perception. Characterizing how the hemodynamic response changes in shape across experimental conditions is important for designing and interpreting fMRI studies on tactile information processing. In this study, we focused on periodic tactile stimuli with different temporal structures and explored the hemodynamic response function (HRF) induced by these stimuli. We found that HRFs were stimulus‐dependent in tactile‐related brain areas. Continuous stimuli induced a greater area of activation and a stronger and narrower hemodynamic response than intermittent stimuli with the same duration. The magnitude of the HRF increased with increasing stimulus duration. By normalizing the characteristics into topographic matrix, nonlinearity was obvious. These results suggested that stimulation patterns and duration within a cycle may be key characters for distinguishing different stimuli. We conclude that different temporal structures of tactile stimuli induced different HRFs, which are essential for vibrotactile perception and should be considered in fMRI experimental designs and analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper revisits the issue of semantic equivalency of two aspectual verbs, start and krenuti, which is proposed by Milivojević (2021a, 2021b). The present analysis focuses on the causative and dynamic semantic features of start and krenuti, with the aim of a contrastive analysis of the aspectual constructions headed by these two verbs. It is shown that both start and krenuti, provided that the necessary linguistic conditions are met, have the ability to "cancel" the event initiated via constructional phase modification. The conditions for such event-cancelling result from the lexical semantics of start and krenuti, as well as from the semantic co-composition on the level of the aspectual construction as a whole. The theoretical frame of the analysis is the presupposition and consequence account by A. Freed (1979). The contrastive analysis and presented theoretical conclusions are backed by a parallel corpus of 200 English and Serbian sentences compiled from the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GlowBE 2013) and the Corpus of Contemporary Serbian Language (SrpKor 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When children testify in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA), they often provide minimal responses to attorneys' questions. Thus, how attorneys ask questions may be particularly influential in shaping jurors' perceptions and memory for case details. This study examined mock jurors' perceptions after reading an excerpt of a CSA trial transcript. Participants' memory of the excerpt was tested after a two-day delay. We examined how reading a direct or cross-examination excerpt that included either high or low temporal structure impacted participants' perceptions, verdict decisions and memory reports. We found that participants who read a direct examination excerpt rated the child witness as more credible, were more likely to convict the defendant and had more accurate memory reports than those who read a cross-examination excerpt, regardless of temporal structure. Suggestions for improving jurors' comprehension and recall of child statements presented as evidence in CSA cases are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Match simulations have been used to investigate different interventions in judo. However, no study has assessed the reliability of actions performed and the physiological responses to the match and its usefulness. Thus, 2 studies were conducted to verify the reliability of time-motion and physiological responses to judo matches. In the first study, 25 judo athletes performed one 5-minute judo match simulation twice, 1 week apart, and had their heart rate and blood lactate measured. In the second, 12 judo athletes performed one 5-minute judo simulation 4 times, 72 hours apart, and had their primary actions and match temporal structure analyzed. Comparisons between conditions, reliability (using intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC), typical error (TE), smallest worthwhile change (SWC), and minimal detectable change were determined. The main findings indicated that: (a) there were no differences between matches for any variable; (b) ICCs were significant (except for blood lactate before matches in both studies) with 6 variables presenting large (number of attacks plus defensive actions, number of scoring actions, efficiency, number of sutemi-waza, time per combat sequence, and time per interval phase time), and the remaining 15 variables presenting very large reliability; (c) TE was higher than SWC for all variables when small differences were considered. Moderate changes in peak blood lactate and the change in blood lactate (in both studies), and time in tachi-waza could be properly detected; however, only large changes could be detected for all other variables, suggesting that investigations using match simulation as an outcome variable may only detect large changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The informative value of time and temporal structure often remains neglected in cognitive assessments. However, next to information about stimulus identity we can exploit temporal ordering principles, such as regularity, periodicity, or grouping to generate predictions about the timing of future events. Such predictions may improve cognitive performance by optimising adaptation to dynamic stimuli. Here, we investigated the influence of temporal structure on verbal working memory by assessing immediate recall performance for aurally presented digit sequences (forward digit span) as a function of standard (1000 ms stimulus‐onset‐asynchronies, SOAs), short (700 ms), long (1300 ms) and mixed (700–1300 ms) stimulus timing during the presentation phase. Participant's digit spans were lower for short and mixed SOA presentation relative to standard SOAs. This confirms an impact of temporal structure on the classic "magical number seven," suggesting that working memory performance can in part be regulated through the systematic application of temporal ordering principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The timing of acoustic events is central to human speech and music. Tempo tends to be slower in aesthetic contexts: rates in poetic speech and music are slower than non-poetic, running speech. We tested whether a general aesthetic preference for slower rates can account for this, using birdsong as a stimulus: it structurally resembles human sequences but is unbiased by their production or processing constraints. When listeners selected the birdsong playback tempo that was most pleasing, they showed no bias towards any range of note rates. However, upon hearing a novel stimulus, listeners rapidly formed a robust, implicit memory of its temporal properties, and developed a stimulus-specific preference for the memorized tempo. Interestingly, tempo perception in birdsong stimuli was strongly determined by individual, internal preferences for rates of 1–2 Hz. This suggests that processing complex sound sequences relies on a default time window, while aesthetic appreciation appears flexible, experience-based and not determined by absolute event rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singing humpback whales often produce sound patterns that are predictably timed. Phrase duration, in particular, has been noted as one of the most stable properties of humpback whale songs. Most descriptive analyses of songs focus, however, either on consistency in sequential structure or on gradual changes in song composition, rather than on the timing of sounds and silences within songs. As a result, little is known about how the timing of sound production varies within or across song sessions. Here, we present an approach to analysing temporal structure within song sessions that can be applied to any recording of a nearby, isolated singer, without requiring subjective classification of songs, themes, phrases or units. Our analyses confirm past subjective impressions of high temporal regularity within song sessions, but also show that the timing of sound production can vary greatly. Singing humpback whales alternate between producing sequences with highly stable temporal structure, sequences with progressive shifts in timing and sequences with rapidly varying temporal features. The amount of time a singer spends producing sequences of each type can vary considerably across song sessions. These findings raise important questions about the extent to which singing humpback whales actively control the rhythm and tempo of sound production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues that behind the apparent randomness of interactions between cabdrivers and their fares in Warsaw is a temporal structure. To capture this temporal structure, the author introduces the notion of a linking ecology. He argues that the Warsaw taxi market is a linking ecology, which is structured by religious time, state time, and family time. The author then focuses on waiting time, arguing that it too structures the interactions between cabdrivers and their fares. The author makes a processual argument that waiting time has been restructured by the postsocialist transformation, but only because this transformation has been continually encoded through the defensive and adaptive strategies of cabdrivers responding to the repetitive and unique events located across the social space. The author concludes with the claim that linking ecologies are a recurring structure of the social process and that they form the backbone of globalization, financialization, and mediatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The self is the core of our mental life. Previous investigations have demonstrated a strong neural overlap between self‐related activity and resting state activity. This suggests that information about self‐relatedness is encoded in our brain's spontaneous activity. The exact neuronal mechanisms of such "rest‐self containment," however, remain unclear. The present EEG study investigated temporal measures of resting state EEG to relate them to self‐consciousness. This was obtained with the self‐consciousness scale (SCS) which measures Private, Public, and Social dimensions of self. We demonstrate positive correlations between Private self‐consciousness and three temporal measures of resting state activity: scale‐free activity as indexed by the power‐law exponent (PLE), the auto‐correlation window (ACW), and modulation index (MI). Specifically, higher PLE, longer ACW, and stronger MI were related to higher degrees of Private self‐consciousness. Finally, conducting eLORETA for spatial tomography, we found significant correlation of Private self‐consciousness with activity in cortical midline structures such as the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex. These results were reinforced with a data‐driven analysis; a machine learning algorithm accurately predicted an individual as having a "high" or "low" Private self‐consciousness score based on these measures of the brain's spatiotemporal structure. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that Private self‐consciousness is related to the temporal structure of resting state activity as featured by temporal nestedness (PLE), temporal continuity (ACW), and temporal integration (MI). Our results support the hypothesis that self‐related information is temporally contained in the brain's resting state. "Rest‐self containment" can thus be featured by a temporal signature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We estimated scale-free human brain dynamics using wavelet-leader formalism. • High-to-low self-similarity defined a fronto-occipital gradient. • The gradient was enhanced in visual motion discrimination compared to resting-state. • Scale-free brain dynamics showed multifractal properties. • Self-similarity decreased whereas multifractality increased from rest to visual task. Abstract Background The temporal structure of macroscopic brain activity displays both oscillatory and scale-free dynamics. While the functional relevance of neural oscillations has been largely investigated, both the nature and the role of scale-free dynamics in brain processing have been disputed. New method Here, we offer a novel method to rigorously enrich the characterization of scale-free brain activity using a robust wavelet-based assessment of self-similarity and multifractality. For this, we analyzed human brain activity recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) while participants were at rest or performing a visual motion discrimination task. Results First, we report consistent infraslow (from 0.1 to 1.5 Hz) scale-free dynamics (i.e., self-similarity and multifractality) in resting-state and task data. Second, we observed a fronto-occipital gradient of self-similarity reminiscent of the known hierarchy of temporal scales from sensory to higher-order cortices; the anatomical gradient was more pronounced in task than in rest. Third, we observed a significant increase of multifractality during task as compared to rest. Additionally, the decrease in self-similarity and the increase in multifractality from rest to task were negatively correlated in regions involved in the task, suggesting a shift from structured global temporal dynamics in resting-state to locally bursty and non Gaussian scale-free structures during task. Comparison with existing method(s) We showed that the wavelet leader based multifractal approach extends power spectrum estimation methods in the way of characterizing finely scale-free brain dynamics. Conclusions Altogether, our approach provides novel fine-grained characterizations of scale-free dynamics in human brain activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I criticize Bourget’s intuitive and empirical arguments for thinking that all possible conscious states are underived if intentional. An underived state is one of which it is not the case that it must be realized, at least in part, by intentional states distinct from itself. The intuitive argument depends upon a thought experiment about a subject who exists for only a split second while undergoing a single conscious experience. This, however, trades on an ambiguity in “split second.” Meanwhile, Bourget’s empirical argument is question-begging. My critique also has implications for debates about the essential temporality and unity of consciousness experience, and, phenomenal atomism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Encoding a sequence relies on one's memory for ordinal succession of events and is critical for episodic memory, spatial navigation, language, and other cognitive functions. Investigating the neural mechanisms underlying sequence working memory in the macaque prefrontal cortex, Xie et al. (Science, 375, 632-639, 2022) uncovered a novel integrated representation of temporal and spatial information in different subspaces of a high-dimensional neural state space, offering broad implications across comparative cognition and neuroscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to modify the stimulus set used to test the misinformation effect developed by Takarangi and her colleagues. The narratives and memory tests were modified to include items asking about specific objects in the story and about the temporal structure of the events. To examine whether the new material could produce the misinformation effect, the author had 72 participants watch a video, read a narrative with misinformation about objects in the video or the temporal sequence in the video, and then take a memory recognition test. This study showed that the misinformation effect could be produced by the temporal misinformation, suggesting that participants were misled by the misinformation regardless of the type of misinformation. As a result of using the modified narratives and the memory test, researchers could examine the effects of multiple types of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical sounds, along with speech, are the most prominent sounds in our daily lives. They are highly dynamic, yet well structured in the temporal domain in a hierarchical manner. The temporal structures enhance the predictability of musical sounds. Western music provides an excellent example: while time intervals between musical notes are highly variable, underlying beats can be realized. The beat-level temporal structure provides a sense of regular pulses. Beats can be further organized into units, giving the percept of alternating strong and weak beats (i.e. metrical structure or meter). Examining neural processing at the meter level offers a unique opportunity to understand how the human brain extracts temporal patterns, predicts future stimuli and optimizes neural resources for processing. The present study addresses two important questions regarding meter processing, using the mismatch negativity (MMN) obtained with electroencephalography (EEG): 1) how tempo (fast vs. slow) and type of metrical structure (duple: two beats per unit vs. triple: three beats per unit) affect the neural processing of metrical structure in non-musically trained individuals, and 2) how early music training modulates the neural processing of metrical structure. Metrical structures were established by patterns of consecutive strong and weak tones (Standard) with occasional violations that disrupted and reset the structure (Deviant). Twenty non-musicians listened passively to these tones while their neural activities were recorded. MMN indexed the neural sensitivity to the meter violations. Results suggested that MMNs were larger for fast tempo and for triple meter conditions. Further, 20 musically trained individuals were tested using the same methods and the results were compared to the non-musicians. While tempo and meter type similarly influenced MMNs in both groups, musicians overall exhibited significantly reduced MMNs, compared to their non-musician counterparts. Further analyses indicated that the reduction was driven by responses to sounds that defined the structure (Standard), not by responses to Deviants. We argue that musicians maintain a more accurate and efficient mental model for metrical structures, which incorporates occasional disruptions using significantly fewer neural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying how patterns of behavior relate across multiple levels of measurement typically requires long time series for reliable parameter estimation. We describe a novel analysis that estimates patterns of variability across multiple scales of analysis suitable for time series of short duration. The multiscale coefficient of variation (MSCV) measures the distance between local coefficient of variation estimates within particular time windows and the overall coefficient of variation across all time samples. We first describe the MSCV analysis and provide an example analytical protocol with corresponding MATLAB implementation and code. Next, we present a simulation study testing the new analysis using time series generated by ARFIMA models that span white noise, short-term and long-term correlations. The MSCV analysis was observed to be sensitive to specific parameters of ARFIMA models varying in the type of temporal structure and time series length. We then apply the MSCV analysis to short time series of speech phrases and musical themes to show commonalities in multiscale structure. The simulation and application studies provide evidence that the MSCVanalysis can discriminate between time series varying in multiscale structure and length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Previous research has demonstrated that attorney question format relates to child witness' response productivity. However, little work has examined the extent to which attorneys provide temporal structure in their questions, and the effects of this structure on children's responding. The purpose of this study was to address this gap in the literature to identify methods by which attorneys increase children's response productivity on the stand without risking objections from opposing counsel for 'calling for narrative answers'. Methods In this study, we coded criminal court transcripts involving child witnesses (5-18 years) for narrative structure in attorney questions and productivity in children's responses. Half of the transcripts resulted in convictions, half in acquittals, balanced across key variables: child age, allegation severity, the child's relationship to the perpetrator, and the number of allegations. Results Prosecutors and defence attorneys varied substantially in their questioning tactics. Prosecutors used more temporal structure in their questions and varied their questioning by the age of the child. These variations had implications for children's response productivity. Conclusions Results indicate that temporal structure is a novel and viable method for enhancing children's production of case-relevant details on the witness stand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human language is a recombinant system that achieves its productivity through the combination of a limited set of sounds. Research investigating the evolutionary origin of this generative capacity has generally focused on the capacity of non-human animals to combine different types of discrete sounds to encode new meaning, with less emphasis on meaning-differentiating mechanisms achieved through potentially simpler temporal modifications within a sequence of repeated sounds. Here we show that pied babblers ( Turdoides bicolor) generate two functionally distinct vocalisations composed of the same sound type, which can only be distinguished by the number of repeated elements. Specifically, babblers produce extended 'purrs' composed of, on average, around 17 element repetitions when drawing young offspring to a food source and truncated 'clucks' composed of a fixed number of 2-3 elements when collectively mediating imminent changes in foraging site. We propose that meaning-differentiating temporal structuring might be a much more widespread combinatorial mechanism than currently recognised and is likely of particular value for species with limited vocal repertoires in order to increase their communicative output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal codes are theoretically powerful encoding schemes, but their precise form in the neocortex remains unknown in part because of the large number of possible codes and the difficulty in disambiguating informative spikes from statistical noise. A biologically plausible and computationally powerful temporal coding scheme is the Hebbian assembly phase sequence (APS), which predicts reliable propagation of spikes between functionally related assemblies of neurons. Here, we sought to measure the inherent capacity of neocortical networks to produce reliable sequences of spikes, as would be predicted by an APS code. To record microcircuit activity, the scale at which computation is implemented, we used two-photon calcium imaging to densely sample spontaneous activity in murine neocortical networks ex vivo. We show that the population spike histogram is sufficient to produce a spatiotemporal progression of activity across the population. To more comprehensively evaluate the capacity for sequential spiking that cannot be explained by the overall population spiking, we identify statistically significant spike sequences. We found a large repertoire of sequence spikes that collectively comprise the majority of spiking in the circuit. Sequences manifest probabilistically and share neuron membership, resulting in unique ensembles of interwoven sequences characterizing individual spatiotemporal progressions of activity. Distillation of population dynamics into its constituent sequences provides a way to capture trial-to-trial variability and may prove to be a powerful decoding substrate in vivo. Informed by these data, we suggest that the Hebbian APS be reformulated as interwoven sequences with flexible assembly membership due to shared overlapping neurons. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Neocortical computation occurs largely within microcircuits comprised of individual neurons and their connections within small volumes (500 m3 ). We found evidence for a long-postulated temporal code, the Hebbian assembly phase sequence, by identifying repeated and co-occurring sequences of spikes. Variance in population activity across trials was explained in part by the ensemble of active sequences. The presence of interwoven sequences suggests that neuronal assembly structure can be variable and is determined by previous activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was undertaken to investigate whether, in rat interactive activities, recurring sequences of behavioural events might be identified and how and to what extent each component of the pair is involved. To this aim, the multivariate temporal-pattern (t-pattern) analysis was applied to the social interactions of 9 pairs of male Wistar rats tested in open field. Interactive activities were classified into intra- and inter-subjects. Quantitative evaluations showed that intra-subject behavioural elements represented 62.37% and inter-subject ones 37.63% of the comprehensive behaviour. T-pattern analysis revealed the presence of 221 different t-patterns organized in four different categories: containing exclusively inter-subject elements; containing both inter- and intra-subject elements; consisting of rat 1 and rat 2 intra-subject elements and, finally, consisting of intra-subject elements carried out by one of the two subjects. Results show that the activity of two interacting Wistar rats is structured on the basis of several recurring temporal sequences. Moreover, social interactions appear to be expressed also by t-patterns where the behavioural elements are carried out by animals seemingly not interacting. A support of t-pattern analysis to studies on Autism Spectrum Disorders is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Climate impact assessment and decision making in the light of projected future climate change require accurate and robust climate scenarios at the local scale. The latter are targeted by statistical bias correction (BC) and downscaling of climate model output. A nowadays well-established technique is quantile mapping ( QM). Here, we apply several different implementations of empirical QM, a parametric (and computationally more expensive) QM method for daily precipitation, and a mean-BC to an ensemble of regional climate scenarios over the topographically structured terrain of Switzerland. The performance of these methods in the current climate and their long-term stability are analysed with respect to distributional and temporal statistics as well as climate impact indices for daily temperature and precipitation. We select an optimal QM implementation, study its effect on the inter-variable consistency, and compare its climate change signal ( CCS) to that of a delta-change (DC) method. The results demonstrate that QM effectively reduces raw model biases. The most important improvements are corrected magnitudes and, for precipitation, also wet-day frequencies. The quantile-dependent bias removal is superior to the mean-BC with respect to distribution-tail statistics. Temporal statistics and climate impact indices are also improved. There is no performance benefit from the parametric QM method. The selected empirical QM implementation substantially improves the joint temperature-precipitation distribution and maintains the temperature-precipitation cross-correlation function as represented by raw climate model data. The CCS analysis reveals the superiority of QM over the DC method with respect to distribution-tail characteristics and temporal statistics. This work reveals empirical QM as a reliable and stable method for BC and downscaling from state-of-the-art regional climate models to local weather stations over alpine terrain, confirming and expanding previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we grasp the temporal structure of events? A few studies have indicated that representations of temporal structure are acquired when there is an intention to learn, but not when learning is incidental. Response-to-stimulus intervals, uncorrelated temporal structures, unpredictable ordinal information, and lack of metrical organization have been pointed out as key obstacles to incidental temporal learning, but the literature includes piecemeal demonstrations of learning under all these circumstances. We suggest that the unacknowledged effects of ordinal load may help reconcile these conflicting findings, ordinal load referring to the cost of identifying the sequence of events (e.g., tones, locations) where a temporal pattern is embedded. In a first experiment, we manipulated ordinal load into simple and complex levels. Participants learned ordinal-simple sequences, despite their uncorrelated temporal structure and lack of metrical organization. They did not learn ordinal-complex sequences, even though there were no response-to-stimulus intervals nor unpredictable ordinal information. In a second experiment, we probed learning of ordinal-complex sequences with strong metrical organization, and again there was no learning. We conclude that ordinal load is a key obstacle to incidental temporal learning. Further analyses showed that the effect of ordinal load is to mask the expression of temporal knowledge, rather than to prevent learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water level fluctuations are among the main drivers of the temporal dynamics of aquatic species, and droughts represent a major disturbance that can affect aquatic populations. We applied a metapopulation perspective to model the temporal variation in the patch occupancy of local populations of two species of submerged macrophytes ( Egeria densa and E. najas ) that colonise a large reservoir (Itaipu, Paraguay/Brazil border) and suffered an intense drought disturbance. The severe water drawdown caused a decrease in the numbers of patches that were colonised by both macrophyte species. This disturbance decreased the fractions of patches occupied by E. densa and E. najas from 13% and 38% to 0.9% and 8.5%, respectively. The recovery of the fraction of patches colonised by populations of these two species had similar responses to the disturbance: a time lag phase, followed by an exponential increase and finally stabilization of the number of occupied patches. Recovery of the fractions of patches that were colonised by E. densa and by E. najas took 80 and 38 months, respectively. A time lag in the temporal metapopulation, followed by an exponential increase in patch occupancy, strongly indicates that both populations recovered by passive dispersal of fragments between patches. Indeed, a metapopulation model that accounts for the fraction occupied and the water level (as an indication of disturbance) explained the temporal dynamics of both species (coefficients of determination = 78% for E. densa and 43% for E. najas ) relatively well. Our results indicate that aquatic species that follow a metapopulation dynamic and depend on dispersal among sites to recover may be severely affected in a future climate change scenario, in which extreme events (including droughts) will tend to be more frequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Females are markedly underinvestigated in the biological and behavioral sciences due to the presumption that cyclic hormonal changes across the ovulatory cycle introduce excess variability to measures of interest in comparison to males. However, recent analyses indicate that male and female mice and rats exhibit comparable variability across numerous physiological and behavioral measures, even when the stage of the estrous cycle is not considered. Hormonal changes across the ovulatory cycle likely contribute cyclic, intra-individual variability in females, but the source(s) of male variability has, to our knowledge, not been investigated. It is unclear whether male variability, like that of females, is temporally structured and, therefore, quantifiable and predictable. Finally, whether males and females exhibit variability on similar time scales has not been explored. Methods: These questions were addressed by collecting chronic, high temporal resolution locomotor activity (LA) and core body temperature (CBT) data from male and female BALB/c mice. Results: Contrary to expectation, males are more variable than females over the course of the day (diel variability) and exhibit higher intra-individual daily range than females in both LA and CBT. Between mice of a given sex, variability is comparable for LA but the inter-individual daily range in CBT is greater for males. To identify potential rhythmic processes contributing to these sex differences, we employed wavelet transformations across a range of periodicities (1-39 h). Conclusions: Although variability in circadian power is comparable between the sexes for both LA and CBT, infradian variability is greater in females and ultradian variability is greater in males. Thus, exclusion of female mice from studies because of estrous cycle variability may increase variance in investigations where only male measures are collected over a span of several hours and limit generalization of findings from males to females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal structure reveals the potential adaptive strategies employed during upper extremity movements. The authors compared the temporal structure of upper extremity joints under 3 different reaching conditions: preferred speed, fast speed, and reaching with rhythmic auditory cues in 10 individuals poststroke. They also investigated the temporal structure of these 3 reaching conditions in 8 healthy controls to aid in the interpretation of the observed patterns in the poststroke cohort. Approximate entropy (ApEn) was used to measure the temporal structure of the upper extremity joints. ApEn was similar between conditions in controls. After stroke, ApEn was significantly higher for shoulder, elbow, and wrist both at fast speed and with rhythmic cues compared with preferred speed. ApEn at index finger was significantly higher only with rhythmic cues compared with preferred speed. The authors propose that practice reaching at faster speed and with rhythmic cues as a component of rehabilitation interventions may enhance adaptability after stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Toddlers learn words in the context of speech from adult social partners. The present studies quantitatively describe the temporal context of parent speech to toddlers about objects in individual real-world interactions. We show that at the temporal scale of a single play episode, parent talk to toddlers about individual objects is predominantly, but not always, clustered. Clustered speech is characterized by repeated references to the same object close in time, interspersed with lulls in speech about the object. Clustered temporal speech patterns mirror temporal patterns observed at longer timescales, and persisted regardless of play context. Moreover, clustered speech about individual novel objects predicted toddlers' learning of those objects' novel names. Clustered talk may be optimal for toddlers' word learning because it exploits domain-general principles of human memory and attention, principles that may have evolved precisely because of the clustered structure of natural events important to humans, including human behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder with a variety of symptoms that include sensorimotor, affective, cognitive, and social changes. The exact neuronal mechanisms underlying these symptoms remain unclear though. Neuroimaging has focused mainly on the brain’s extrinsic activity, specifically task-evoked or stimulus-induced activity, as related to the sensorimotor, affective, cognitive, and social functions. Recently, the focus has shifted to the brain’s spontaneous activity, otherwise known as its resting state activity. While various spatial and temporal abnormalities have been observed in spontaneous activity in schizophrenia, their meaning and significance for the different psychopathological symptoms in schizophrenia, are yet to be defined. The first aim in this paper is to provide an overview of recent findings concerning changes in the spatial (e.g., functional connectivity) and temporal (e.g., couplings between different frequency fluctuations) properties of spontaneous activity in schizophrenia. The second aim is to link these spatiotemporal changes to the various psychopathological symptoms of schizophrenia, with a specific focus on basic symptoms, formal thought disorder, and ego-disturbances. Based on the various findings described, we postulate that the spatiotemporal changes on the neuronal level of the brain’s spontaneous activity transform into corresponding spatiotemporal changes on the psychological level which, in turn, leads to the different kinds of psychopathological symptoms. We consequently suggest a spatiotemporal rather than cognitive or sensory approach to the condition, amounting to what we describe as “Spatiotemporal Psychopathology”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implicit learning of temporal structure has primarily been reported when events within a sequence (e.g., visual-spatial locations, tones) are systematically ordered and correlated with the temporal structure. An auditory serial reaction time task was used to investigate implicit learning of temporal intervals between pseudorandomly ordered syllables. Over exposure, participants identified syllables presented in sequences with weakly metrical temporal structures. In a test block, the temporal structure differed from exposure only in the duration of the interonset intervals (IOIs) between groups. It was hypothesized that reaction time (RT) to syllables following between-group IOIs would decrease with exposure and increase at test. In Experiments 1 and 2, the sequences presented over exposure and test were counterbalanced across participants (Pattern 1 and Pattern 2 conditions). An RT increase at test to syllables following between-group IOIs was only evident in the condition that presented an exposure structure with a slightly stronger meter (Pattern 1 condition). The Pattern 1 condition also elicited a global expectancy effect: Test block RT slowed to earlier-than-expected syllables (i.e., syllables shifted to an earlier beat) but not to later-than-expected syllables. Learning of between-group IOIs and the global expectancy effect extended to the Pattern 2 condition when meter was strengthened with an external pulse (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 further demonstrated implicit learning of a new weakly metrical structure with only earlier-than-expected violations at test. Overall findings demonstrate learning of weakly metrical rhythms without correlated event structures (i.e., sequential syllable orders). They further suggest the presence of a global expectancy effect mediated by metrical strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Event knowledge, a person's understanding of patterns of activities in the world, is crucial for everyday social interactions. Social communication differences are prominent in autism, which may be related to atypical event knowledge, such as atypical knowledge of the sequences of activities that comprise the temporal structure of events. Previous research has found that autistic individuals have atypical event knowledge, but research in this area is minimal, particularly regarding autistic individuals' knowledge of the temporal structure of events. Furthermore, no studies have investigated the link between event knowledge and autistic traits in a non-clinical sample. We investigated relationships between event knowledge and autistic traits in individuals from the general population with varying degrees of autistic traits. We predicted that atypical ordering of event activities is related to autistic traits, particularly social communication abilities, but not other clinical traits. In Study 1, atypical ordering of event activities correlated with social ability, but not with most measures of repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. In Study 2, the typicality of activity ordering varied by participants' social ability and the social nature of the events. Relationships were not found between event activity ordering and other clinical traits. These findings suggest a relationship between autistic traits, specifically social abilities, and knowledge of the temporal structure of events in a general population sample. • Event knowledge is related to social communication ability in the general population. • Ability to order activities within events is associated with social abilities. • The degree to which an event is socially-oriented matters for this relationship. • Activity ordering is not associated with other tested clinical traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boston's Museum of Science supports researchers whose projects advance science and provide educational opportunities to the Museum's visitors. For our project, 60 visitors to the Museum played ''Fish Police!!,'' a video game that examines audiovisual integration, including the ability to ignore irrelevant sensory information. Players, who ranged in age from 6 to 82 years, made speeded responses to computer-generated fish that swam rapidly across a tablet display. Responses were to be based solely on the rate (6 or 8 Hz) at which a fish's size modulated, sinusoidally growing and shrinking. Accompanying each fish was a task-irrelevant broadband sound, amplitude modulated at either 6 or 8 Hz. The rates of visual and auditory modulation were either Congruent (both 6Hz or 8 Hz) or Incongruent (6 and 8 or 8 and 6 Hz). Despite being instructed to ignore the sound, players of all ages responded more accurately and faster when a fish's auditory and visual signatures were Congruent. In a controlled laboratory setting, a related task produced comparable results, demonstrating the robustness of the audiovisual interaction reported here. Some suggestions are made for conducting research in public settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans engage in many tasks that involve gathering multiple targets from their environment (e.g., picking berries from a patch). Such foraging tasks raise questions about how observers maximize target collection – e.g., how long should one spend at one berry patch before moving to the next patch. Classic optimal foraging theories propose a simple decision rule: People move on when current intake drops below the average rate. Previous studies of foraging often assume this average is fixed and predict no strong relationship between the contents of the immediately preceding patch or patches and the current patch. In contrast to this prediction, we found evidence of temporal effects in a laboratory analog of a berry-picking task. Observers stayed longer when previous patches were better. This result is the opposite of what would be predicted by a model in which the assessment of the average rate is biased in favor of recent patches. This result was found when patch quality varied systematically over the course of the experiment (Experiment 1). Smaller effects were seen when patch quality was randomized (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that optimal foraging theories must account for the recent history to explain current behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out-of-synchrony experiences can easily recalibrate one's subjective simultaneity point in the direction of the experienced asynchrony. Although temporal adjustment of multiple audiovisual stimuli has been recently demonstrated to be spatially specific, perceptual grouping processes that organize separate audiovisual stimuli into distinctive 'objects' may play a more important role in forming the basis for subsequent multiple temporal recalibrations. We investigated whether apparent physical differences between audiovisual pairs that make them distinct from each other can independently drive multiple concurrent temporal recalibrations regardless of spatial overlap. Experiment 1 verified that reducing the physical difference between two audiovisual pairs diminishes the multiple temporal recalibrations by exposing observers to two utterances with opposing temporal relationships spoken by one single speaker rather than two distinct speakers at the same location. Experiment 2 found that increasing the physical difference between two stimuli pairs can promote multiple temporal recalibrations by complicating their non-temporal dimensions (e.g., disks composed of two rather than one attribute and tones generated by multiplying two frequencies); however, these recalibration aftereffects were subtle. Experiment 3 further revealed that making the two audiovisual pairs differ in temporal structures (one transient and one gradual) was sufficient to drive concurrent temporal recalibration. These results confirm that the more audiovisual pairs physically differ, especially in temporal profile, the more likely multiple temporal perception adjustments will be content-constrained regardless of spatial overlap. These results indicate that multiple temporal recalibrations are based secondarily on the outcome of perceptual grouping processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Olfaction in mammals is a dynamic process driven by the inhalation of air through the nasal cavity. Inhalation determines the temporal structure of sensory neuron responses and shapes the neural dynamics underlying central olfactory processing. Inhalation-linked bursts of activity among olfactory bulb (OB) output neurons [mitral/tufted cells (MCs)] are temporally transformed relative to those of sensory neurons. We investigated how OB circuits shape inhalation-driven dynamics in MCs using a modeling approach that was highly constrained by experimental results. First, we constructed models of canonical OB circuits that included mono- and disynaptic feedforward excitation, recurrent inhibition and feedforward inhibition of the MC. We then used experimental data to drive inputs to the models and to tune parameters; inputs were derived from sensory neuron responses during natural odorant sampling (sniffing) in awake rats, and model output was compared with recordings of MC responses to odorants sampled with the same sniff waveforms. This approach allowed us to identify OB circuit features underlying the temporal transformation of sensory inputs into inhalation-linked patterns of MC spike output. We found that realistic input-output transformations can be achieved independently by multiple circuits, including feedforward inhibition with slow onset and decay kinetics and parallel feedforward MC excitation mediated by external tufted cells. We also found that recurrent and feedforward inhibition had differential impacts on MC firing rates and on inhalation-linked response dynamics. These results highlight the importance of investigating neural circuits in a naturalistic context and provide a framework for further explorations of signal processing by OB networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sound's duration provides important information about the event producing it. Although many of the sounds we hear every day are 'percussive' in nature (ie resulting from two objects impacting) and therefore exhibit decaying/damped amplitude envelopes, perceptual experiments frequently use tones synthesized with 'flat' or abruptly ending envelopes. Such sounds afford an estimation strategy involving calculating the elapsed time between tone onset and offset--a strategy that would be problematic for ecologically pervasive decaying sounds. Here we compare duration judgments for tones with percussive (ie gradually decaying) and flat (ie abruptly ending) amplitude envelopes, finding evidence for the use of different strategies. This result is discussed in terms of its implications for dominant theories and models of sensory perception that are often assessed using artificial sounds (ie 'flat tones') affording strategies that may not be optimal or even available for everyday listening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RECENT WORK FROM OUR LAB ILLUSTRATES AMPLITUDE envelope's crucial role in both perceptual (Schutz, 2009) and cognitive (Schutz & Stefanucci, 2010) processing. Consequently, we surveyed the amplitude envelopes of sounds used in Music Perception, categorizing them as either flat (i.e., trapezoidal shape), percussive (aka "damped" or "decaying"), other, or undefined. Curiously, the undefined category represented the largest percentage of sounds observed, with 35% lacking definition of this important property (approximately 27% were percussive, 27% flat, and 11% other). This omission of relevant information was not indicative of general inattention to methodological detail. Studies using tones with undefined amplitude envelopes generally defined other properties such as spectral structure (85%), duration (80%), and even model of headphones/speakers (65%) at high rates. Consequently, this targeted omission is intriguing, and suggests amplitude envelope is an area ripe for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The amplitude permutation directly reflects the temporal structure of vectors. • Indexes of equal values in permutations should be modified to be the same. • Amplitude permutations of temporal-symmetric vectors are symmetric. • Original permutations of amplitude-symmetric vectors are symmetric. The original and amplitude permutations are two basic ordinal patterns; however, their relationship has received little attention. This paper compares the original and amplitude permutations used to characterize vector structures. To accurately convey the vector structure, we modify indexes of equal values in the permutations to be the same ones in each group of equalities. Comparative analysis suggests that the amplitude permutation, comprising the positions of the original values in the reordered vector, directly reflects the vector's temporal structure, whereas the original permutation, consisting of the indexes of reorganized values in the original vector, conveys the structural pattern of the reorganized vector. Moreover, we clarify the association of the original and amplitude permutations with time- and amplitude-symmetric vectors, thus contributing to the fields of symbolic analysis, topological data analysis, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]