Time and the Brain

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Speaker: David Eagleman
Thursday, January 26, 2012
4:00 PM to 5:00 PM


1070 Duncan Hall
Rice University
6100 Main St
Houston,Texas,USA


Most of the actions our brains perform on a daily basis -- such as perceiving, speaking, and driving a car -- require timing on the scale of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. New discoveries in our laboratory are contributing to an emerging picture of how the brain processes, learns, and perceives time. We will demonstrate new temporal illusions in which durations dilate, perceived order of actions and events are reversed, and time is experienced in slow motion. Questions addressed include: Does your brain work in real time, or do you experience a delayed version of the world? How and why does the brain dynamically recalibrate its timing judgments? Does subjective time really slow down during a car accident?

Host: Tony Elam