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In the real world, object arrangement follows a number of rules. Some of the rules pertain to the spatial relations between objects and scenes (i.e., syntactic rules) and others about the contextual relations (i.e., semantic rules). Research has shown that violation of semantic rules influences interval timing with the duration of scenes containing such violations to be overestimated as compared to scenes with no violations. However, no study has yet investigated whether both semantic and syntactic violations can affect timing in the same way. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the effect of scene violations on timing is due to attentional or other cognitive accounts. Using an oddball paradigm and real-world scenes with or without semantic and syntactic violations, we conducted two experiments on whether time dilation will be obtained in the presence of any type of scene violation and the role of attention in any such effect. Our results from Experiment 1 showed that time dilation indeed occurred in the presence of syntactic violations, while time compression was observed for semantic violations. In Experiment 2, we further investigated whether these estimations were driven by attentional accounts, by utilizing a contrast manipulation of the target objects. The results showed that an increased contrast led to duration overestimation for both semantic and syntactic oddballs. Together, our results indicate that scene violations differentially affect timing due to violation processing differences and, moreover, their effect on timing seems to be sensitive to attentional manipulations such as target contrast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time dilation was experienced in most countries and across the several years of the Covid-19 crisis: the passage of time was deemed slower than before the pandemic, and the distance to the beginning of the pandemic seemed longer than it really was. An outstanding question is how these two aspects of time judgements relate to other temporal, social and affective disturbances. We developed and validated a 59-item questionnaire to explore these questions. 3306 participants completed the questionnaire in France in May and June 2021. Here, we analyse group differences and find that both slow passage of time and long distance judgements were associated with larger disturbances across all domains under study. These included temporal disruptions—the aptness to project oneself into the future, the sense of a rift between pre-pandemic and pandemic time, the ability to locate oneself in time, the capacity to recall the order of past events—, as well as an overall sense of social disorientation, and trauma-specific disturbances. In contrast, both fast passage of time and short distance judgements were associated with beneficial effects across all of the mentioned domains. Our results indicate that perceived passage of time and temporal distance judgements are key indicators of social and temporal disorientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to a stationary pattern, a moving pattern dilates the perception of time. However, when it comes to comparing only moving stimulus, the exact dilation effects are less clear. The time dilation may be attributed to either speed of motion, temporal and spatial frequency, stimulus complexity, or the number of changes in the stimulus pattern. In the present study, we used progress bars and throbbers for inducing impressions of fast and slow "apparent" motions while the speed of motion and distance covered was actually equivalent across all conditions. The results indicate that higher number of steps produced the impression of a faster progression leading to an underestimation of time, whereas a progression in large fewer steps, produced slower apparent progression, creating the illusion of dilated time. We suggest that the perception of time depends on the nature of the stimulus rather than the speed of motion or the distance covered by the stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we investigated how the perception of auditory duration could be modulated by a task-irrelevant, concurrent visual apparent motion, induced by visual bars alternating between left and right sides. Moreover, we examined the influence of the speed and temporal frequency of visual apparent motion on the perception of auditory duration. In each trial, the standard visual stimuli (two vertical bars) were presented sequentially, except that visual apparent motion was included in the fourth stimulus. A tone was presented simultaneously with each visual stimulus, while the fourth tone was presented with varied duration. Participants judged whether the fourth tone lasted longer than the other four tones. In Experiment 1, the speed of visual apparent motion (Fast vs. Slow) was manipulated by changing the interval between two bars. The mean point of subjective equality (PSE) in the Slow apparent motion condition was larger than that in the Static condition. Moreover, participants tended to overestimate the duration only in the Static condition, i.e., time dilation effect, which disappeared under apparent motion conditions. In Experiment 2, in addition to speed, we controlled the temporal frequency of apparent motion by manipulating the number of bars, generating four conditions of visual apparent motion (Physical-fast, Perceived-fast, Perceived-slow, vs. Static). The mean PSE was significantly smaller in the Physical-fast condition than in the Static and Perceived-slow conditions. Moreover, we found a time compression effect in both the Perceived-slow and Static conditions but not in the Perceived-fast and Physical-fast conditions. These results suggest that the auditory duration could be modulated by the concurrent, contextual visual apparent motion, and both the speed and temporal frequency of the task-irrelevant visual apparent motion contribute to the bias in perceiving the auditory duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrations of the hormone leptin, which is produced by adipose tissue, increase with increasing BMI, whereas leptin sensitivity often declines with higher BMI. Thus, altered leptin signaling may play a role in reproductive health risks observed with increasing BMI, which include later onset and slow progression of labor. Conflicting evidence from clinical, animal and in vitro studies have suggested that leptin either promotes or inhibits labor. We hypothesized that serum leptin concentrations or serum leptin: body mass index (BMI) ratios in women may be associated with the initiation and progression of labor. Following informed consent, serum samples were collected from 90 women with singleton pregnancies at the time of routine glucose-challenge testing, for measurement of leptin. The potential influence of leptin on gestation length and cervical dilation timing were examined by multiple linear regression. Data were analyzed from 63 participants who met exclusion and inclusion criteria. Leptin concentrations (log-transformed) at 24–28 weeks gestation were not significantly correlated with first trimester BMI. Log serum leptin and leptin: BMI ratio each were significantly associated with shorter total gestation length in uncomplicated, term pregnancies. In contrast, the mid-pregnancy leptin concentrations were not associated with progression of labor, assessed by cervical dilation over time. The association between higher serum leptin and shorter gestation length is consistent with the hypothesis that leptin promotes, or is permissive for, the onset of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the theory of thermodynamic relativity, a unified theoretical framework for describing both entropies and velocities, and their respective physical disciplines of thermodynamics and kinematics, which share a surprisingly identical description with relativity. This is the first study to generalize relativity in a thermodynamic context, leading naturally to anisotropic and nonlinear adaptations of relativity; thermodynamic relativity constitutes a new path of generalization, as compared to the “traditional” passage from special to general theory based on curved spacetime. We show that entropy and velocity are characterized by three identical postulates, which provide the basis of a broader framework of relativity: (1) no privileged reference frame with zero value; (2) existence of an invariant and fixed value for all reference frames; and (3) existence of stationarity. The postulates lead to a unique way of addition for entropies and for velocities, called kappa-addition. We develop a systematic method of constructing a generalized framework of the theory of relativity, based on the kappa-addition formulation, which is fully consistent with both thermodynamics and kinematics. We call this novel and unified theoretical framework for simultaneously describing entropy and velocity “thermodynamic relativity”. From the generality of the kappa-addition formulation, we focus on the cases corresponding to linear adaptations of special relativity. Then, we show how the developed thermodynamic relativity leads to the addition of entropies in nonextensive thermodynamics and the addition of velocities in Einstein’s isotropic special relativity, as in two extreme cases, while intermediate cases correspond to a possible anisotropic adaptation of relativity. Using thermodynamic relativity for velocities, we start from the kappa-addition of velocities and construct the basic formulations of the linear anisotropic special relativity; e.g., the asymmetric Lorentz transformation, the nondiagonal metric, and the energy-momentum-velocity relationships. Then, we discuss the physical consequences of the possible anisotropy in known relativistic effects, such as, (i) matter-antimatter asymmetry, (ii) time dilation, and (iii) Doppler effect, and show how these might be used to detect and quantify a potential anisotropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In the real world, object arrangement follows a number of rules. Some of the rules pertain to the spatial relations between objects and scenes (i.e., syntactic rules) and others about the contextual relations (i.e., semantic rules). Research has shown that violation of semantic rules influences interval timing with the duration of scenes containing such violations to be overestimated as compared to scenes with no violations. However, no study has yet investigated whether both semantic and syntactic violations can affect timing in the same way. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the effect of scene violations on timing is due to attentional or other cognitive accounts. Using an oddball paradigm and real-world scenes with or without semantic and syntactic violations, we conducted two experiments on whether time dilation will be obtained in the presence of any type of scene violation and the role of attention in any such effect. Our results from Experiment 1 showed that time dilation indeed occurred in the presence of syntactic violations, while time compression was observed for semantic violations. In Experiment 2, we further investigated whether these estimations were driven by attentional accounts, by utilizing a contrast manipulation of the target objects. The results showed that an increased contrast led to duration overestimation for both semantic and syntactic oddballs. Together, our results indicate that scene violations differentially affect timing due to violation processing differences and, moreover, their effect on timing seems to be sensitive to attentional manipulations such as target contrast.

Pandemics, like the 1918 Spanish Influenza and COVID-19, spread through regions of the World in subsequent waves. Here we propose a consistent picture of the wave pattern based on the epidemic Renormalisation Group (eRG) framework, which is guided by the global symmetries of the system under time rescaling. We show that the rate of spreading of the disease can be interpreted as a time-dilation symmetry, while the final stage of an epidemic episode corresponds to reaching a time scale-invariant state. We find that the endemic period between two waves is a sign of instability in the system, associated to near-breaking of the time scale-invariance. This phenomenon can be described in terms of an eRG model featuring complex fixed points. Our results demonstrate that the key to control the arrival of the next wave of a pandemic is in the strolling period in between waves, i.e. when the number of infections grows linearly. Thus, limiting the virus diffusion in this period is the most effective way to prevent or delay the arrival of the next wave. In this work we establish a new guiding principle for the formulation of mid-term governmental strategies to curb pandemics and avoid recurrent waves of infections, deleterious in terms of human life loss and economic damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Redshift is a crucial concept in physics; it has significant implications for our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of the cosmos. In this article, we introduce a generalized formula to determine the redshift parameter. The unified framework, which relates the redshift to the energy of the system, eliminates the need to derive the redshift parameter on a case-by-case basis, uncovering the relationships between different mechanisms. Furthermore, the generalization allows us to extend the redshift to non-considered mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We introduce the theory of thermodynamic relativity, a unified theoretical framework for describing both entropies and velocities, and their respective physical disciplines of thermodynamics and kinematics, which share a surprisingly identical description with relativity. This is the first study to generalize relativity in a thermodynamic context, leading naturally to anisotropic and nonlinear adaptations of relativity; thermodynamic relativity constitutes a new path of generalization, as compared to the “traditional” passage from special to general theory based on curved spacetime. We show that entropy and velocity are characterized by three identical postulates, which provide the basis of a broader framework of relativity: (1) no privileged reference frame with zero value; (2) existence of an invariant and fixed value for all reference frames; and (3) existence of stationarity. The postulates lead to a unique way of addition for entropies and for velocities, called kappa-addition. We develop a systematic method of constructing a generalized framework of the theory of relativity, based on the kappa-addition formulation, which is fully consistent with both thermodynamics and kinematics. We call this novel and unified theoretical framework for simultaneously describing entropy and velocity “thermodynamic relativity”. From the generality of the kappa-addition formulation, we focus on the cases corresponding to linear adaptations of special relativity. Then, we show how the developed thermodynamic relativity leads to the addition of entropies in nonextensive thermodynamics and the addition of velocities in Einstein’s isotropic special relativity, as in two extreme cases, while intermediate cases correspond to a possible anisotropic adaptation of relativity. Using thermodynamic relativity for velocities, we start from the kappa-addition of velocities and construct the basic formulations of the linear anisotropic special relativity; e.g., the asymmetric Lorentz transformation, the nondiagonal metric, and the energy-momentum-velocity relationships. Then, we discuss the physical consequences of the possible anisotropy in known relativistic effects, such as, (i) matter-antimatter asymmetry, (ii) time dilation, and (iii) Doppler effect, and show how these might be used to detect and quantify a potential anisotropy.

The experience of passage of time is assumed to be a constitutive component of our subjective phenomenal experience and our everyday life that is detached from the estimation of time durations. However, our understanding of the factors contributing to passage of time experience has been mostly restricted to associated emotional and cognitive experiences in temporally extended situations. Here, we tested the influence of low-level visual stimuli on the experience of passage and duration of time in 10-30 s intervals. We introduce a new paradigm in a starfield environment that allows to study the effects of basic visual aspects of a scene (velocity and density of stars in the starfield) and the duration of the situation, both embedded in a color tracking task. Results from two experiments show that velocity and density of stars in the starfield affect passage of time experience independent from duration estimation and the color tracking task: the experienced passage of time is accelerated with higher rates of moment-to-moment changes in the starfield while duration estimations are comparably unaffected. The results strongly suggest differential psychological processes underlying the experience of time passing by and the ability to estimate time durations. Potential mechanisms behind these results and the prospects of experimental approaches towards passage of time experience in psychological and neuroscientific research are discussed., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Abstract In the present study, we investigated how the perception of auditory duration could be modulated by a task-irrelevant, concurrent visual apparent motion, induced by visual bars alternating between left and right sides. Moreover, we examined the influence of the speed and temporal frequency of visual apparent motion on the perception of auditory duration. In each trial, the standard visual stimuli (two vertical bars) were presented sequentially, except that visual apparent motion was included in the fourth stimulus. A tone was presented simultaneously with each visual stimulus, while the fourth tone was presented with varied duration. Participants judged whether the fourth tone lasted longer than the other four tones. In Experiment 1, the speed of visual apparent motion (Fast vs. Slow) was manipulated by changing the interval between two bars. The mean point of subjective equality (PSE) in the Slow apparent motion condition was larger than that in the Static condition. Moreover, participants tended to overestimate the duration only in the Static condition, i.e., time dilation effect, which disappeared under apparent motion conditions. In Experiment 2, in addition to speed, we controlled the temporal frequency of apparent motion by manipulating the number of bars, generating four conditions of visual apparent motion (Physical-fast, Perceived-fast, Perceived-slow, vs. Static). The mean PSE was significantly smaller in the Physical-fast condition than in the Static and Perceived-slow conditions. Moreover, we found a time compression effect in both the Perceived-slow and Static conditions but not in the Perceived-fast and Physical-fast conditions. These results suggest that the auditory duration could be modulated by the concurrent, contextual visual apparent motion, and both the speed and temporal frequency of the task-irrelevant visual apparent motion contribute to the bias in perceiving the auditory duration.

Interaction-driven modeling of diseases over real-world contact data has been shown to promote the understanding of the spread of diseases in communities. This temporal modeling follows the path-preserving order and timing of the contacts, which are essential for accurate modeling. Yet, other important aspects were overlooked. Various airborne pathogens differ in the duration of exposure needed for infection. Also, from the individual perspective, Covid-19 progression differs between individuals, and its severity is statistically correlated with age. Here, we enrich an interaction-driven model of Covid-19 and similar airborne viral diseases with (a) meetings duration and (b) personal disease progression. The enriched model enables predicting outcomes at both the population and the individual levels. It further allows predicting individual risk of engaging in social interactions as a function of the virus characteristics and its prevalence in the population. We further showed that the enigmatic nature of asymptomatic transmission stems from the latent effect of the network density on this transmission and that asymptomatic transmission has a substantial impact only in sparse communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal processing, the ability to mentally represent and process the dynamical unfolding of events over time, is a fundamental feature of cognition that evolves with advancing age. Aging has indeed been associated with slower and more variable performance in timing tasks. However, the role of depressive symptoms in age-related changes in temporal processing remains to be investigated. Therefore, the present work aims to shed light on the link between temporal processing and depressive symptoms, which are frequent with advancing age. We relied on the multicentric "Blursday Project" database, providing measures of temporal processing together with questionnaires investigating psychological wellbeing. Results reveal that aging influences several timing abilities, from the reproduction of short time intervals to verbal estimations of longer temporal distances. Furthermore, the slowing down of felt passage of time regarding the last few days with age was fully mediated by the intensity of depressive symptoms. Overall, these findings suggest that depressive symptoms may play a pivotal role in age-related temporal processing changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Time dilation was experienced in most countries and across the several years of the Covid-19 crisis: the passage of time was deemed slower than before the pandemic, and the distance to the beginning of the pandemic seemed longer than it really was. An outstanding question is how these two aspects of time judgements relate to other temporal, social and affective disturbances. We developed and validated a 59-item questionnaire to explore these questions. 3306 participants completed the questionnaire in France in May and June 2021. Here, we analyse group differences and find that both slow passage of time and long distance judgements were associated with larger disturbances across all domains under study. These included temporal disruptions—the aptness to project oneself into the future, the sense of a rift between pre-pandemic and pandemic time, the ability to locate oneself in time, the capacity to recall the order of past events—, as well as an overall sense of social disorientation, and trauma-specific disturbances. In contrast, both fast passage of time and short distance judgements were associated with beneficial effects across all of the mentioned domains. Our results indicate that perceived passage of time and temporal distance judgements are key indicators of social and temporal disorientation.

In 1981, Mermin published a now famous paper titled, "Bringing home the atomic world: Quantum mysteries for anybody" that Feynman called, "One of the most beautiful papers in physics that I know." Therein, he presented the "Mermin device" that illustrates the conundrum of quantum entanglement per the Bell spin states for the "general reader." He then challenged the "physicist reader" to explain the way the device works "in terms meaningful to a general reader struggling with the dilemma raised by the device." Herein, we show how "conservation per no preferred reference frame (NPRF)" answers that challenge. In short, the explicit conservation that obtains for Alice and Bob's Stern-Gerlach spin measurement outcomes in the same reference frame holds only on average in different reference frames, not on a trial-by-trial basis. This conservation is SO(3) invariant in the relevant symmetry plane in real space per the SU(2) invariance of its corresponding Bell spin state in Hilbert space. Since NPRF is also responsible for the postulates of special relativity, and therefore its counterintuitive aspects of time dilation and length contraction, we see that the symmetry group relating non-relativistic quantum mechanics and special relativity via their "mysteries" is the restricted Lorentz group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Compared to a stationary pattern, a moving pattern dilates the perception of time. However, when it comes to comparing only moving stimulus, the exact dilation effects are less clear. The time dilation may be attributed to either speed of motion, temporal and spatial frequency, stimulus complexity, or the number of changes in the stimulus pattern. In the present study, we used progress bars and throbbers for inducing impressions of fast and slow “apparent” motions while the speed of motion and distance covered was actually equivalent across all conditions. The results indicate that higher number of steps produced the impression of a faster progression leading to an underestimation of time, whereas a progression in large fewer steps, produced slower apparent progression, creating the illusion of dilated time. We suggest that the perception of time depends on the nature of the stimulus rather than the speed of motion or the distance covered by the stimulus.

Time is a uniquely human yet culturally ubiquitous concept acquired over childhood and provides an underlying dimension for episodic memory and estimating durations. Because time, unlike distance, lacks a sensory representation, we hypothesized that subjects at different ages attribute different meanings to it when comparing durations; pre-kindergarten children compare the density of events, while adults use the concept of observer-independent absolute time. We asked groups of pre-kindergarteners, school-age children, and adults to compare the durations of an "eventful" and "uneventful" video, both 1-minute long but durations unknown to subjects. In addition, participants were asked to express the durations of both videos non-verbally with simple hand gestures. Statistical analysis has revealed highly polarized temporal biases in each group, where pre-kindergarteners estimated the duration of the eventful video as "longer." In contrast, the school-age group of children and adults claimed the same about the uneventful video. The tendency to represent temporal durations with a horizontal hand gesture was evident among all three groups, with an increasing prevalence with age. These results support the hypothesis that pre-kindergarten-age children use heuristics to estimate time, and they convert from availability to sampling heuristics between pre-kindergarten and school age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we try to assess the duration of an event, we are often affected by external information. Studies on multiple timing have found that simultaneous timing information can produce an averaging or central tendency effect, where the perceived duration of the elements tends to be biased towards a general average. We wanted to assess how this effect induced by simultaneous distractors could depend on the temporal similarity between stimuli. We used a duration judgment task in which participants (n = 22) had to compare the duration of two identical targets (1 s) accompanied by simultaneous distractors of different durations (0.3, 0.7, 1.5 or 3 s). We found a central tendency effect, where duration judgments of the target were systematically biased towards the duration of the distractors that accompanied them. We put forward a model based on the concept of duration-channels that can explain the central tendency effect with only one estimated parameter. This parameter modulates the rate of decay of this effect as distractors duration become more different than the duration of the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent fossil discoveries suggest that Neandertals and Homo sapiens may have co-existed in Europe for as long as 5 to 6000 years. Yet, evidence for their contemporaneity at any regional scale remains highly elusive. In France and northern Spain, a region which features some of the latest directly-dated Neandertals in Europe, Protoaurignacian assemblages attributed to Homo sapiens appear to 'replace' Neandertal-associated Châtelperronian assemblages. Using the earliest and latest known occurrences as starting points, Bayesian modelling has provided indication that these occupations may in fact have been partly contemporaneous. The reality, however, is that we are unlikely to ever identify the 'first' or 'last' appearance of a species or cultural tradition in the archaeological and fossil record. Here, we use optimal linear estimation modelling to estimate the first appearance date of Homo sapiens and the extinction date of Neandertals in France and northern Spain by statistically inferring these 'missing' portions of the Protoaurignacian and Châtelperronian archaeological records. Additionally, we estimate the extinction date of Neandertals in this region using a dataset of directly-dated Neandertal fossil remains. Our total dataset consists of sixty-six modernly produced radiocarbon determinations which we recalibrated using the newest calibration curve (IntCal20) to produce updated age ranges. The results suggest that the onset of the Homo sapiens occupation of this region likely preceded the extinction of Neandertals and the Châtelperronian by up to 1400–2900 years. This reaffirms the Bayesian-derived duration of co-existence between these groups during the initial Upper Palaeolithic of this region using a novel independent method, and indicates that our understanding of the timing of these occupations may not be suffering from substantial gaps in the record. Whether or not this co-existence featured some form of direct interaction, however, remains to be resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is demonstrated that the 3-vector S currently associated to the spin in an inertial frame does not contract, but rather dilates, in the direction of the velocity. The correct vector T is individuated. The equation of motion for the two vectors is shown to contain two terms, a common linear rotation, identified with Thomas precession, and also a nonlinear rotation depending on the direction of the spin itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale solid bodies on Earth such as volcanoes and man-made pyramids have been visualized with solid earth muography, and the recently invented technique, acqueous muography, has already demonstrated its capability to visualize ocean tides and tsunami. In this work, atmospheric muography, a technique to visualize and monitor the vertical profile of tropic cyclones (TCs) is presented for the first time. The density distribution and time-dependent behavior of several TCs which had approached Kagoshima, Japan, has been investigated with muography. The resultant time-sequential images captured their warm cores, and their movements were consistent with the TC trails and barometric pressure variations observed at meteorological stations. By combining multidirectional muographic images with barometric data, we anticipate that muography will become a useful tool to monitor the three-dimensional density distribution of a targeted mesoscale convective system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal perceptual learning (TPL) refers to improved temporal performance as a result of training with sub-second intervals. Most studies on TPL have focused on empty intervals (i.e. intervals marked by two brief stimuli); however, scholars have suggested that filled intervals (i.e. intervals presented as continuous sensory inputs) might have different underlying mechanisms. Therefore, the current study aimed to test whether empty and filled intervals yield similar TPL performance and whether such learning effects could transfer mutually. To this end, we trained two groups of participants with empty and filled intervals of 200 ms for four days, respectively. We found that the empty-interval group clearly improved their timing performances after training, and such an effect transferred to filled intervals of 200 ms. By contrast, the filled-interval group had neither learning nor transfer effect. Our results further shed light on the distinct mechanisms between empty and filled intervals in time perception while simultaneously replicating the classical findings on TPL involving empty intervals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bullying is a subtype of violence that leads to maladaptive behaviors and emotional responses, with implications for social competence, emotions, and empathy. The present study compared the time course of emotional processing in children who were involved in the dynamics of bullying (i.e., as victims, bullies, and observers) by evaluating event-related potentials [early posterior negativity and late positive potential (LPP)] in different brain regions during a passive visualization task that involved positive, neutral, and negative social pictures. High-density electroencephalograms were recorded in 45 children, 8–12 years old (M = 9.5 years, SD = 1.3), while they observed emotional and neutral social pictures that we selected from the International Affective Picture System. Late positive potential had higher amplitudes in the victim group, especially in posterior and anterior regions. In the central region, LPP was greater toward neutral social pictures in bullying victims. The greater amplitude of LPP in victims was observed during and after the stimulus. The results showed a consistent response with a higher intensity in response to emotional stimuli in the victim group, suggesting a tendency toward hypervigilance that could interfere with emotional regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Pandemics, like the 1918 Spanish Influenza and COVID-19, spread through regions of the World in subsequent waves. Here we propose a consistent picture of the wave pattern based on the epidemic Renormalisation Group (eRG) framework, which is guided by the global symmetries of the system under time rescaling. We show that the rate of spreading of the disease can be interpreted as a time-dilation symmetry, while the final stage of an epidemic episode corresponds to reaching a time scale-invariant state. We find that the endemic period between two waves is a sign of instability in the system, associated to near-breaking of the time scale-invariance. This phenomenon can be described in terms of an eRG model featuring complex fixed points. Our results demonstrate that the key to control the arrival of the next wave of a pandemic is in the strolling period in between waves, i.e. when the number of infections grows linearly. Thus, limiting the virus diffusion in this period is the most effective way to prevent or delay the arrival of the next wave. In this work we establish a new guiding principle for the formulation of mid-term governmental strategies to curb pandemics and avoid recurrent waves of infections, deleterious in terms of human life loss and economic damage.

Cocaine Use Disorder (CUD) is a significant public health problem associated with elevated morbidity and mortality within the United States. Current behavioral treatments have limited efficacy and there are currently no FDA approved pharmacological treatments for CUD. Classic psychedelics might be associated with lowered odds of substance misuse and may effectively treat various forms of addiction. Thus, the goal of this study is to assess protective associations that lifetime use of classic psychedelics may share with CUD within a nationally representative sample of the U.S. We used data from The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) (2015–2019) and conducted survey-weighted multivariable logistic regression to test whether each of four classic psychedelics (peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, LSD) conferred lowered odds of CUD and its related 11 sub-criteria. Participants were 214,505 adults in the NSDUH (2015–2019) aged 18 and older. Peyote conferred lowered odds of CUD, reducing the odds of CUD by over 50% (aOR: 0.47). All other substances (including other classic psychedelics) either shared no association to CUD or conferred increased odds of CUD. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses revealed peyote to confer sharply lowered odds of the majority (seven of 11) of CUD criteria as well (aOR range: 0.26–0.47). Peyote use is associated with lowered odds of CUD. Future inquiries into third variable factors (i.e., demographic/personality profiles of individuals who use peyote, motivational/contextual factors surrounding peyote use) that may underlie our observed associations may reveal protective factors that can inform treatment development for CUD. Additionally, future longitudinal studies can shed further light on whether there is a temporal link between peyote use and lowered odds of CUD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reconstruction of charged particle trajectories at the Large Hadron Collider and future colliders relies on energy depositions in sensors placed at distances ranging from a centimeter to a meter from the colliding beams. We propose a method of detecting charged particles that decay invisibly after traversing a short distance of about 25 cm inside the experimental apparatus. One of the decay products may constitute the dark matter known to be 84% of all matter at galactic and cosmological distance scales. Our method uses graph computing to cluster spacepoints recorded by two-dimensional silicon pixel sensors into mathematically-defined patterns. The algorithm may be implemented on silicon-based integrated circuits using field-programmable gate array technology to augment or replace traditional computing platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence indicates that voluntary actions can modulate the subjective time experience of its outcomes to optimize dynamic interaction with the external environment. In the present study, using a temporal reproduction task where participants reproduced the duration of an auditory stimulus to which they were previously exposed by performing different types of voluntary action, we examined how the subjective time experience of action outcomes changed with voluntary action types. Two experiments revealed that the subjective time experience of action outcomes was compressed, compared with physical time, if the action was performed continuously (Experiment 1), possibly enhancing the experience of controlling the action outcome, or if the action was added an extra task-unrelated continuous action (Experiment 2), possibly reflecting different underlying mechanisms from subjective time compression induced by the task-related continuous action. The majority of prior studies have focused on the subjective time experience of action outcomes when actions were performed voluntarily or not, and no previous study has examined the effects of differences in voluntary action types on the subjective time experience of action outcomes. These findings may be useful in situations in which people wish to intentionally compress their own time experience of daily events through their voluntary actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The processing of time and numbers has been fundamental to human cognition. One of the prominent theories of magnitude processing, a theory of magnitude (ATOM), suggests that a generalized magnitude system processes space, time, and numbers; thereby, the magnitude dimensions could potentially interact with one another. However, more recent studies have found support for domain-specific magnitude processing and argued that the magnitudes related to time and number are processed through distinct mechanisms. Such mixed findings have raised questions about whether these magnitudes are processed independently or share a common processing mechanism. In the present study, we examine the influence of numerical magnitude on temporal processing. To investigate, we conducted two experiments using a temporal comparison task, wherein we presented positive and negative numerical magnitudes (large and small) in a blocked (Experiment-1) and intermixed manner (Experiment-2). Results from experiment-1 suggest that numerical magnitude affects temporal processing only in positive numbers but not for negative numbers. Further, results from experiment-2 indicate that the polarity (positive and negative) of the numbers influences temporal processing instead of the numerical magnitude itself. Overall, the current study seems to suggest that cross-domain interaction of magnitudes arises from attentional mechanisms and may not need to posit a common magnitude processing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensory adaptation experiments have revealed the existence of 'rate after-effects' - adapting to a relatively fast rate makes an intermediate test rate feel slow, and adapting to a slow rate makes the same moderate test rate feel fast. The present work aims to deconstruct the concept of rate and clarify how exactly the brain processes a regular sequence of sensory signals. We ask whether rate forms a distinct perceptual metric, or whether it is simply the perceptual aggregate of the intervals between its component signals. Subjects were exposed to auditory or visual temporal rates (a 'slow' rate of 1.5 Hz and a 'fast' rate of 6 Hz), before being tested with single unfilled intervals of varying durations. Results show adapting to a given rate strongly influences the perceived duration of a single empty interval. This effect is robust across both interval reproduction and duration discrimination judgments. These findings challenge our understanding of rate perception. Specifically, they suggest that contrary to some previous assertions, the perception of sequence rate is strongly influenced by the perception of the sequence's component duration intervals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract phenomena can often be analysed in a visually clear way by thought experiments. In the present work a new thought experiment is analysed, which describes the emission of a photon by a special mechanism. The analysis leads to the finding, that there is a natural connection between the energy-time uncertainty and the Heisenberg position-momentum uncertainty principle. A deeper analysis of this thought experiment, especially with regard to a justification of the Doppler effect from the uncertainty principle, leads to the conclusion, that the speed of light is invariant. Therefore it seems reasonable to assume, that the origin of relativistic laws lies in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a test operation of an Er-doped fibre femtosecond laser which was conducted for the first time in outer space. The fibre-based ultrashort pulse laser payload was designed to meet space-use requirements, undergone through ground qualification tests and finally launched into a low-earth orbit early in 2013. Test results obtained during a one-year mission lifetime confirmed stable mode-locking all the way through although the radiation induced attenuation (RIA) in the Er-doped gain fibre caused an 8.6% reduction in the output power. This successful test operation would help facilitate diverse scientific and technological applications of femtosecond lasers in space and earth atmosphere in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a framework for relativistic quantum metrology that is useful for both Earth-based and space-based technologies. Quantum metrology has been so far successfully applied to design precision instruments such as clocks and sensors which outperform classical devices by exploiting quantum properties. There are advanced plans to implement these and other quantum technologies in space, for instance Space-QUEST and Space Optical Clock projects intend to implement quantum communications and quantum clocks at regimes where relativity starts to kick in. However, typical setups do not take into account the effects of relativity on quantum properties. To include and exploit these effects, we introduce techniques for the application of metrology to quantum field theory. Quantum field theory properly incorporates quantum theory and relativity, in particular, at regimes where space-based experiments take place. This framework allows for high precision estimation of parameters that appear in quantum field theory including proper times and accelerations. Indeed, the techniques can be applied to develop a novel generation of relativistic quantum technologies for gravimeters, clocks and sensors. As an example, we present a high precision device which in principle improves the state-of-the-art in quantum accelerometers by exploiting relativistic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual perception is based on periods of stable fixation separated by saccadic eye movements. Although naive perception seems stable (in space) and continuous (in time), laboratory studies have demonstrated that events presented around the time of saccades are misperceived spatially and temporally. Saccadic chronostasis, the "stopped clock illusion", represents one such temporal distortion in which the movement of the clock hand after the saccade is perceived as lasting longer than usual. Multiple explanations for chronostasis have been proposed including action-backdating, temporal binding of the action towards the moment of its effect ("intentional binding") and post-saccadic temporal dilation. The current study aimed to resolve this debate by using different types of action (keypress vs saccade) and varying the intentionality of the action. We measured both perceived onset of the motor action and perceived onset of an auditory tone presented at different delays after the keypress/saccade. The results showed intentional binding for the keypress action, with perceived motor onset shifted forwards in time and the time of the tone shifted backwards. Saccades resulted in the opposite pattern, showing temporal expansion rather than compression, especially with cued saccades. The temporal illusion was modulated by intentionality of the movement. Our findings suggest that saccadic chronostasis is not solely dependent on a backward shift in perceived saccade onset, but instead reflects a temporal dilation. This percept of an effectively "longer" period at the beginning of a new fixation may reflect the pattern of suppressed, and then enhanced, visual processing around the time of saccades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the biggest threats to humanity are pandemics. In our global society they can rage around the world with an immense toll in terms of human, economic and social impact. Forecasting the spreading of a pandemic is, therefore, paramount in helping governments to enforce a number of social and economic measures, apt at curbing the pandemic and dealing with its aftermath. We demonstrate that the epidemic renormalisation group approach to pandemics provides an effective and simple way to investigate the dynamics of disease transmission and spreading across different regions of the world. The framework also allows for reliable projections on the impact of travel limitations and social distancing measures on global epidemic spread. We test and calibrate it on reported COVID-19 cases while unveiling the mechanism that governs the delay in the relative peaks of newly infected cases among different regions of the globe. We discover that social distancing measures are more effective than travel limitations across borders in delaying the epidemic peak. We further provide the link to compartmental models such as the time-honoured SIR-like models. We also show how to generalise the framework to account for the interactions across several regions of the world, replacing or complementing large scale simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary physics, the model of space–time as the fundamental arena of the universe is replaced by some authors with the superfluid quantum vacuum. In a vacuum, time is not a fourth dimension of space, it is merely the duration of the physical changes, i.e. motion in a vacuum. Mass–energy equivalence has its origin in the variable density of the vacuum. Inertial mass and gravitational mass are equal and both originate in the vacuum fluctuations from intergalactic space towards stellar objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being able to track objects that surround us is key for planning actions in dynamic environments. However, rigorous cognitive models for tracking of one or more objects are currently lacking. In this study, we asked human subjects to judge the time to contact (TTC) a finish line for one or two objects that became invisible shortly after moving. We showed that the pattern of subject responses had an error variance best explained by an inverse Gaussian distribution and consistent with the output of a biased drift-diffusion model. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the pattern of errors made when tracking two objects showed a level of dependence that was consistent with subjects using a single decision variable for reporting the TTC for two objects. This finding reveals a serious limitation in the capacity for tracking multiple objects resulting in error propagation between objects. Apart from explaining our own data, our approach helps interpret previous findings such as asymmetric interference when tracking multiple objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the environment, there exists a continuous interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter. So, atoms continuously interact with the photons of the environmental electromagnetic fields. This electromagnetic interaction is the consequence of the continuous and universal thermal non-equilibrium, that introduces an element of randomness to atomic and molecular motion. Consequently, a decreasing of path probability required for microscopic reversibility of evolution occurs. Recently, an energy footprint has been theoretically proven in the atomic electron-photon interaction, related to the well known spectroscopic phase shift effect, and the results on the irreversibility of the electromagnetic interaction with atoms and molecules, experimentally obtained in the late sixties. Here, we want to show how this quantum footprint is the "origin of time". Last, the result obtained represents also a response to the question introduced by Einstein on the analysis of the interaction between radiation and molecules when thermal radiation is considered; he highlighted that in general one restricts oneself to a discussion of the energy exchange, without taking the momentum exchange into account. Our result has been obtained just introducing the momentum into the quantum analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding neuronal communication is fundamental in neuroscience, but there are few methodologies offering detailed analysis for well-controlled conditions. By interfacing microElectrode arrays with microFluidics (μEF devices), it is possible to compartmentalize neuronal cultures with a specified alignment of axons and microelectrodes. This setup allows the extracellular recording of spike propagation with a high signal-to-noise ratio over the course of several weeks. Addressing these μEF devices, we developed an advanced yet easy-to-use publically available computational tool, μSpikeHunter, which provides a detailed quantification of several communication-related properties such as propagation velocity, conduction failure, spike timings, and coding mechanisms. The combination of μEF devices and μSpikeHunter can be used in the context of standard neuronal cultures or with co-culture configurations where, for example, communication between sensory neurons and other cell types is monitored and assessed. The ability to analyze axonal signals (in a user-friendly, time-efficient, high-throughput manner) opens the door to new approaches in studies of peripheral innervation, neural coding, and neuroregeneration, among many others. We demonstrate the use of μSpikeHunter in dorsal root ganglion neurons where we analyze the presence of both anterograde and retrograde signals in μEF devices. A fully functional version of µSpikeHunter is publically available for download from https://github.com/uSpikeHunter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How we estimate the passage of time is an unsolved mystery in neuroscience. Illusions of subjective time provide an experimental access to this question. Here we show that time compression and expansion of visually marked intervals result from a binding of temporal interval markers. Interval markers whose onset signals were artificially weakened by briefly flashing a whole-field mask were bound in time towards markers with a strong onset signal. We explain temporal compression as the consequence of summing response distributions of weak and strong onset signals. Crucially, temporal binding occurred irrespective of the temporal order of weak and strong onset markers, thus ruling out processing latencies as an explanation for changes in interval duration judgments. If both interval markers were presented together with a mask or the mask was shown in the temporal interval center, no compression occurred. In a sequence of two intervals, masking the middle marker led to time compression for the first and time expansion for the second interval. All these results are consistent with a model view of temporal binding that serves a functional role by reducing uncertainty in the final estimate of interval duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that motion and gravity affect the precision of quantum clocks. We consider a localised quantum field as a fundamental model of a quantum clock moving in spacetime and show that its state is modified due to changes in acceleration. By computing the quantum Fisher information we determine how relativistic motion modifies the ultimate bound in the precision of the measurement of time. While in the absence of motion the squeezed vacuum is the ideal state for time estimation, we find that it is highly sensitive to the motion-induced degradation of the quantum Fisher information. We show that coherent states are generally more resilient to this degradation and that in the case of very low initial number of photons, the optimal precision can be even increased by motion. These results can be tested with current technology by using superconducting resonators with tunable boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In everyday life moving objects often follow irregular or repetitive trajectories for which distinctive events are potentially noticeable. It is known that the perceived duration of moving objects is distorted, but whether the distortion is due to the temporal frequency of the events or to the speed of the objects remains unclear. Disentangling the contribution of these factors to perceived duration distortions is ecologically relevant: if perceived duration were dependent on speed, it should contract with the distance from the observer to the moving objects. Here, we asked observers to estimate the perceived duration of an object rotating at different speeds and radii and found that perceived duration dilated with temporal frequency of rotations, rather than speed (or perceived speed, which we also measured). We also found that the dilation was larger for two than for one object, but the increase was not large enough to make perceived duration independent of the number of objects when expressed as a function of the local frequency (the number of times an object crossed a given location per time unit). These results suggest that perceived duration of natural stimuli containing distinctive events doesn't depend on the distance of the events to the observer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]