google-site-verification=Bi5tI8WZLmgLQCt3p-aIw8z5CkJAHeD9rrURuZtohHM The Multiple Oscillator model - Human Factors Minute

Episode 133

The Multiple Oscillator model

The Multiple Oscillator Model is a connectionist model that describes how we perceive time.

An oscillator can be described as a pacemaker with a repetitive rhythm - like a swinging pendulum. The perception of an oscillator can provide the linear metric of time without one having to read a clock.

This particular model describes time as being perceived through the feedback of multiple oscillators, each with a different frequency once they are triggered. It is believed that intervals in seconds can accurately be perceived when a set of oscillators coincide with one another.

This model works as long as each sensory event triggers the oscillators to reset. However, it is unlikely that one could account for shorter intervals, like a few hundred milliseconds.

The multiple oscillator model and other proposed time-perception theories are part of the larger picture in researching why we sometimes have an altered perception of time in different situations. There are a variety of human factors that go into time perception, and there is still much to learn.

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Transcript

..and now for another Human Factors Minute!

The Multiple Oscillator Model is a connectionist model that describes how we perceive time.

An oscillator can be described as a pacemaker with a repetitive rhythm - like a swinging pendulum. The perception of an oscillator can provide the linear metric of time without one having to read a clock.

This particular model describes time as being perceived through the feedback of multiple oscillators, each with a different frequency once they are triggered. It is believed that intervals in seconds can accurately be perceived when a set of oscillators coincide with one another.

This model works as long as each sensory event triggers the oscillators to reset. However, it is unlikely that one could account for shorter intervals, like a few hundred milliseconds.

The multiple oscillator model and other proposed time-perception theories are part of the larger picture in researching why we sometimes have an altered perception of time in different situations. There are a variety of human factors that go into time perception, and there is still much to learn.

This has been another Human Factors Minute!

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Nick Roome

Nick is currently a Systems engineer at Imagine Believe Realize LLC in Phoenix Metro area. Alongside colleague and friends, Blake Arnsdorff and Barry Kirby, Nick hosts and produces Human Factors Cast, a weekly podcast that investigates the sciences of human factors, psychology, engineering, biomechanics, industrial design, physiology and anthropometry and how it affects our interaction with technology. Nick’s other areas of interest include, but are not limited to virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, systems engineering, and artificially intelligent systems.

Nick Started Human Factors Cast in early 2016 as a side-project. He believed that the way Human Factors concepts were being communicated is broken and saw a way to fix it. After getting initial traction, Nick moved to work on the Human Factors Cast Digital Media Lab and began assembling a multi-disciplinary team to test out new concepts in Human Factors communication.