title: A scale-invariant internal representation of time.
abstract: We propose a principled way to construct an internal representation of the temporal stimulus history leading up to the present moment. A set of leaky integrators performs a Laplace transform on the stimulus function, and a linear operator approximates the inversion of the Laplace transform. The result is a representation of stimulus history that retains information about the temporal sequence of stimuli. This procedure naturally represents more recent stimuli more accurately than less recent stimuli; the decrement in accuracy is precisely scale invariant. This procedure also yields time cells that fire at specific latencies following the stimulus with a scale-invariant temporal spread. Combined with a simple associative memory, this representation gives rise to a moment-to-moment prediction that is also scale invariant in time. We propose that this scale-invariant representation of temporal stimulus history could serve as an underlying representation accessible to higher-level behavioral and cognitive mechanisms. In order to illustrate the potential utility of this scale-invariant representation in a variety of fields, we sketch applications using minimal performance functions to problems in classical conditioning, interval timing, scale-invariant learning in autoshaping, and the persistence of the recency effect in episodic memory across timescales.
authors.affiliation: Center for Memory and Brain, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA. shankark@bu.edu
authors.forename: Karthik H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Shankar
authors.forename: Marc W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Howard
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008959:Models, Neurological; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors