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The Duration of Presence

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Philosophy and Psychology of Time

Part of the book series: Studies in Brain and Mind ((SIBM,volume 9))

Abstract

Regarding the present experience in the here and now, the question arises as to what the temporal limits of conscious awareness are. At least three levels of temporal present pertaining to temporal integration with different duration can be discerned: (1) in the range of milliseconds, the functional moment defines whether events are perceived as simultaneous or as appearing temporally ordered; (2) in the range of up to 2 or 3 s, the experienced moment is related to temporal segmentation which enables the conscious awareness of the present moment; (3) in the range of multiple seconds, continuity of experience is formed by working memory processes leading to the sense of mental presence. Present experience is a single unitary state. Therefore, experiences on lower levels of temporal integration are embedded and discontinuously fused into the highest level of integration: mental presence. Events occurring within an experienced moment are phenomenally present and integrated into working memory-related mental presence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See the distinction between absolute and relative presence by Sean Enda Power’s Chap. 5 of this volume. My analysis is consistent with the concept of relative presence which can be durational. Absolute presence would be punctual.

  2. 2.

    Dan Lloyd (2004, 2012) provides an intuitive example for a temporal field in music. Someone familiar with the Beatles song “Hey Jude,” when she hears Paul McCartney start to sing the “Hey” accompanied with the well-known tune will automatically anticipate the “Jude.” The “Jude” is somehow present but it actually physically not yet existent (the recording could suddenly be interrupted). When McCartney sings the “Jude” the “Hey” is still somehow present although no longer physically there. “Hey Jude” forms a unit of present experience.

  3. 3.

    Just as an aside: Why would the neural system create a mechanism which lets the eye blinks get unnoticed? Indeed the duration of 200–250 ms is quite long. But functionally, a top-down mechanism does not compensate for the loss of visual input. Is this mechanism for letting eye blinks go unnoticed an indication that phenomenal consciousness beyond functionality is an important feature for the conscious observer?

  4. 4.

    This statement may only relate to the conscious awareness of temporal ordering. In certain visual temporal integration tasks it has been shown that some temporal-order processing may still happen on an unconscious level (Giersch et al. 2013; Pilz et al. 2013). Importantly, this unconscious coding of temporal ordering has been discussed creating a feeling for the continuous passage of time.

  5. 5.

    The phenomenal experience related to listening to the sequence of these stimuli is not easy to capture. Although with a stimulus-onset asynchrony of 300 ms one has the clear impression of four consecutive sounds, one has yet to “replay” them several times in one’s mind to come up with a definite answer. One could argue that temporal order is only inferred from a retrospective perspective after the perceptual gestalt has been perceived. The ordering of four cards representing the four different sounds makes the task definitely easier. I can provide probe stimuli in wav format with various stimulus-onset asynchronies for a personal listening experience.

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Acknowledgments

Over the years the empirical and conceptual work presented here was supported by grants from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Berlin), the Max Kade Foundation (New York), the National Institute of Drug Abuse (Bethesda), the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (San Diego), the tri-national Neuroscience Network Neurex (Illkirch), and the Fundação Bial (Porto). The author was also supported by the European project COST ISCH Action TD0904 “Time In MEntaL activitY: theoretical, behavioral, bioimaging and clinical perspectives (TIMELY; www.timely-cost.eu).” Thanks go to Bruno Mölder, Valtteri Arstila, and Peter Øhrstrøm for hosting the Turku workshop on “The philosophy and psychology of time: continuity, presence and the timing of experience” (14.8.–15.8.2013). At this meeting I got the chance to exchange with many philosophers and scientists on the topic of temporal presence. From this meeting and from continuous exchange, inspiration came from several people, which I would like to mention, namely Valtteri Arstila, Sean Power, Christoph Hoerl, Oliver Rashbrook, Ian Phillips. Finally, I want to mention the conceptual work on the topic presented here with Carlos Montemayor.

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  1. Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Wilhelmstr. 3a, 79098, Freiburg, Germany

    Marc Wittmann

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Bruno Mölder

  2. Department of Behavioral Sciences and Philosophy, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Valtteri Arstila

  3. Department of Communication and Psychology, University of Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark

    Peter Øhrstrøm

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Wittmann, M. (2016). The Duration of Presence. In: Mölder, B., Arstila, V., Øhrstrøm, P. (eds) Philosophy and Psychology of Time. Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22195-3_6

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