Interval timing: memory, not a clock.
Anticipation of periodic events signalled by a time marker, or interval timing, has been explained by a separate pacemaker-counter clock. However, recent research has added support to an older idea: that memory strength can act as a clock. The way that memory strength decreases with time can be inferred from the properties of habituation, and the underlying process also provides a unified explanation for proportional timing, the Weber-law property and several other properties of interval timing.
Staddon
J E R
JE
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, GSRB2, Box 91050, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA. staddon@psych.duke.edu
D000818:Animals; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010507:Periodicity; D011582:Psychological Theory; D013995:Time; D013997:Time Factors