the accuracy of estimating the duration of an event. The former is concerned with the phenomenal impression of subjective passage of time, the latter with the comparison between subjective duration and objective clock time, i.e. This distinction is about the general feeling we have of time passing from the future to the past (sometimes as the impression of time passing slowly or fast), on the one hand, and the sensorimotor timing of behavior in relation to the duration of specific events, on the other hand. a perceptual stimulus) that merely happen at specific times ( Kent 2019). Timing and other nonconscious aspects of time perception should not be confused or conflated with time consciousness itself, which can be defined as the conscious experience of time, as opposed to events (e.g. One possible misconception at the root of this problem is that time consciousness is synonymous with the timing of behavior, perception, and other stimulus-based responses or event-based experiences. The discrete “timing” of brief neural, perceptual, and behavioral functioning cannot hope to explain time consciousness when, from a prevailing phenomenological viewpoint, it is neither discrete nor brief ( Wittmann 2016 Dorato and Wittmann 2020). As such, we claim that current theories do not adequately address time as a fundamental aspect of conscious experience. Decades of timing research supports a “minimally sufficient” duration for time consciousness somewhere in the seconds’ range ( Fraisse 1984 Pöppel 1989, 1997 Varela 1999 Wittmann 2011 Kent 2019), but most theories and methodologies in consciousness science only focus on the hundreds-of-milliseconds’ range ( Northoff and Lamme 2020). While there is a prevailing consensus in the field that consciousness is extended in time ( Northoff and Lamme 2020), in our opinion as dedicated time researchers, it is not yet extended enough. One prime example is time or, in its context-specific form, time consciousness.

Within this high-stakes environment, where competing or even adversarial perspectives are vying for ascendancy, the fundamentals in questions have to be clear, concise, and consistent. The recent ascent of theories of consciousness has undoubtedly raised the stakes regarding fundamental aspects of experience and reality. Regardless of outcome, the crucial step is to make subjective time a central object of study. Or, if it turns out that no existing theory can fully accommodate time consciousness, then perhaps it has something new to add. It may be that different theories of consciousness are compatible/complementary if the different aspects of time are taken into account. Given the lack of work dedicated to time consciousness, its study could test novel predictions of rival theories of consciousness. This confusion between short and discrete versus long and continuous is, we argue, one of the core issues in theories of consciousness. Very few refer to more extended, dynamic, and continuous time, which is associated with conscious experience (cf. However, a brief review finds that many dominant theories of consciousness only refer to brief, static, and discrete “functional moments” of time. Experience flows through a succession of moments and progresses from future predictions, to present experiences, to past memories. Consciousness and the present moment both extend in time.

Here we emphasize an often under-represented aspect in the debate: time consciousness. There are plenty of issues to be solved in order for researchers to agree on a neural model of consciousness.

Continuity perception definition