Learning to perceive time: A connectionist, memory-decay model of the development of interval timing in infants

We present the first developmental model of interval timing. It is a memory-based connectionist model of how infants learn to perceive time. It has two novel features that are not found in other models. First, it uses the uncertainty of a memory for an event as an index of how long ago that event happened. Secondly, embodiment – specifically, infant motor activity – is crucial to the calibration of time-perception both within and across sensory modalities. We describe the model and present three simulations which show (1) how it uses sensory memory uncertainty and bodily representaions to index time, (2) that the scalar property of interval timing (Gibbon, 1977) emerges naturally from this network and (3) that motor activity can synchronize independent timing mechanisms across different sensory modalities.

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