Computers use a periodic clock signal as the fundamental way to measure elapsed time. If the clock operates at 32768 Hz (a typical RTC), and if 16384 ticks elapse between two events, the computer knows the two events were 0.5 seconds apart. It is critical that the clock always tick at the same rate, otherwise the computer would incorrectly measure time.
Does the human brain operate similarly? I can roughly count out seconds, so what underlying physical or chemical process is happening in my brain with such regularity that I can do so? And like with the computer example, if we could alter the frequency of our internal clock, would we perceive time to elapse differently?
In: Biology
Humans are actually pretty bad at temporal perception and it is very easy for us to lose track of time. Either we get so focused on a task, we forget everything else, either we are so bored we feel time doesn’t pass. We don’t have a neurological sense of time as is. We have a sense of timing, a sense of beat.
People that have no outside reference of time, no clock, no window to see out of a chamber — like people in solitary confinement, can easily lose any sense of time of day and don’t know how long they might have been locked up.
A clock is critical for computers, because the clock tick is what forces the flop — change of state and calculations inside the processor. Biological brains don’t have that requirement. Instead, to ‘sense’ time we estimate by just being aware that it passes, but people tend to be bad at giving a good assessment of it without any outside help, like a clock, or the position of the sun.
We certainly don’t have anything that would be as precise as a quartz or mechanical clock. There exist a complex neurochemical mechanism that is called “circadian clock” which uses multiple factors, like the time you spend awake and the amount of light to determine your sleep/awakeness cycle. There are several chemicals that play a role in this. E.g. adenozyne that acculumates in your brain during awakeness and is removed during sleep. Or melatonin that is secreted by your pineal gland when there is little light.
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