Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
Cognitive Neuroscientist and Associate Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. Perception of Time, Memory, & Action. Exec Director @ http://timingforum.org
Martin Joel Wiener is an American academic and author. He is currently a research professor at Rice University.
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Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Apr 22
Memorability shapes perceived time (and vice versa) - Nature Human Behaviour
In this Article, Ma et al. show, across a series of experiments, that time and memorability (the probability of recalling a visual stimulus) mutually influence one another, suggesting that time is a f...
www.nature.com
Excited and thrilled and humbled that our work is now out at Nature Human Behaviour linking Memorability with Time Perception! I hope you all find it of interest 🙂
Memorability shapes perceived time (and vice versa)
#academicsky #neuroskyence #psychscisky #science
Memorability shapes perceived time (and vice versa)
#academicsky #neuroskyence #psychscisky #science
It isn’t?
Reposted by Martin Wiener, Nate Breznau
Please repost! I am looking for a PhD candidate in the area of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience to start in early 2026.
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
The position is funded as part of the Excellence Cluster "The Adaptive Mind" at @jlugiessen.bsky.social.
Please apply here until Nov 25:
www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns...
Very cool! Any chance to play around with this yet? (I see paper says code available upon publication tho...)
Reposted by Martin Wiener
Introducing CorText: a framework that fuses brain data directly into a large language model, allowing for interactive neural readout using natural language.
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
Whoa, huge congratulations!!
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Oct 10
I took a class with Rescorla and recall these findings. Curious what your take (or the students) was on them. Evidence for a temporal prior for association?
Thanks to NSF and BSF, we've received a CRCNS grant!! 🎉
I'll be working with the amazing @ayeletlandau.bsky.social and Yuval Benjamini to explore and understand how our sense of time and image memorability are linked. ⌛🧠
We have 2(!) post-doc opportunities available - details coming soon!
I'll be working with the amazing @ayeletlandau.bsky.social and Yuval Benjamini to explore and understand how our sense of time and image memorability are linked. ⌛🧠
We have 2(!) post-doc opportunities available - details coming soon!
POSTDOC Opening: I'm hiring a postdoc to work with me, @ayeletlandau.bsky.social, and Yuval Benjamini on a 4-year NSF funded project to understand timing and memorability in the visual system. fMRI, EEG, eye-tracking all included.
If interested, please DM or email me for more information!
If interested, please DM or email me for more information!
UPDATE!! HIRING POSTED:
Tenure track assistant professor in Psychology at George Mason University, with a focus on cognitive computational neuroscience. Reviews begin October 21st and continue thereafter.
Email me for more questions/inquiries
listings.jobs.gmu.edu/jobs/tenure-...
Tenure track assistant professor in Psychology at George Mason University, with a focus on cognitive computational neuroscience. Reviews begin October 21st and continue thereafter.
Email me for more questions/inquiries
listings.jobs.gmu.edu/jobs/tenure-...
All this was the great work of Giuliana Macedo, a killer student in my lab. Huge thanks as well to Brady Roberts, Wilma Bainbridge, and Mathias Sablé-Meyer for providing their stimuli!
Beyond all this, we found that shapes/symbols with more edges were also processed faster in recurrent models of vision, and were also predicted to be more memorable.
Altogether, we think this provides evidence that visual time is guided by information content.
Altogether, we think this provides evidence that visual time is guided by information content.
Here, we found that the durations of images that required more steps to generate were both dilated AND more precise. In the image below the ones on the right were seen as longer than the ones on the right.
ALSO, the effect was moderated by how subjectively meaningful subjects found the stimuli
ALSO, the effect was moderated by how subjectively meaningful subjects found the stimuli
Notably, Exp1 affected only precision, whereas Exp2 affected only accuracy. What's the link? In our final experiment we used line drawings generated by an algorithm from @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social according to the minimum number of steps to create them.
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
So what's going on? Do angles matter? We turned to more complicated symbols, both artificial and real:
Here, we found that symbols that contained more edges were dilated. In the attached image, the symbols on the right all seemed to last longer than the ones on the left.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Here, we found that symbols that contained more edges were dilated. In the attached image, the symbols on the right all seemed to last longer than the ones on the left.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
To answer this, we turned to intermediate layers of vision. We started out with the popular "Bouba Kiki" set. We found that the durations of more angular shapes ("Kiki"-like) were perceived more precisely and faster, modified by how large people perceived them and how consistently they named them.
Last year, we published a paper showing that scene images that were more memorable were also dilated. We found a link to how "fast" these images were processed through recurrent deep learning models of vision.
But, we didn't know WHY they were processed faster
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
But, we didn't know WHY they were processed faster
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ok, so our sense of time is malleable, right? All kinds of stimuli alter perceived duration: bigger things seem longer than smaller things, red things seem longer than blue things. Scenes, contrast, emotion, biomotion, etc.
We can split these into "high" and "low" levels of vision
We can split these into "high" and "low" levels of vision
Which do you think lasts longer, a spade or an hourglass symbol?
Excited to share a new preprint from my lab, with some interesting and surprising results. 🧵 follows
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Excited to share a new preprint from my lab, with some interesting and surprising results. 🧵 follows
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
The Temporal Scaffolding of Sensory Organization
How a developing nervous system discovers meaning in complex sensory inputs has typically been examined separately for each sensory modality. Even as studies have uncovered modality-specific strategie...
doi.org
"This integration supports the conclusion that time may be the fundamental dimension along which the brain organizes its sensorium..."
Fantastic review by Pawan Sinha and colleagues (@lukasvogelsang.bsky.social @marinv.bsky.social)
doi.org/10.1146/annu...
Fantastic review by Pawan Sinha and colleagues (@lukasvogelsang.bsky.social @marinv.bsky.social)
doi.org/10.1146/annu...
I had to do this for our paper using LaMem. The solution was to find similar images using an open source set (e.g. Pexels) and have a disclaimer in the figure caption. We put the actual images in OSF for anyone who wanted them.
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 29
The relationship between Individual Alpha Frequency and Time Perception: testing the Internal Clock versus the Sampling Rate Hypothesis
Perceiving the duration of events is a fundamental ability for everyday life. Traditional research has focused on the role of alpha oscillations as an…
www.sciencedirect.com
What does alpha frequency *do*? Is it a clock, or a sampler? What's the difference?
The relationship between Individual Alpha Frequency and Time Perception: testing the Internal Clock versus the Sampling Rate Hypothesis
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The relationship between Individual Alpha Frequency and Time Perception: testing the Internal Clock versus the Sampling Rate Hypothesis
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 29
Why is there no Bluesky link on @elsevierconnect.bsky.social? I'm trying to share papers here!
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 29
Intrinsic interval timing, not temporal prediction, underlies ramping dynamics in visual and parietal cortex, during passive behavior
Neural activity following regular sensory events can reflect either elapsed time since the previous event (temporal signaling) or temporal predictions and prediction errors about the next event (tempo...
www.biorxiv.org
Very exciting article by Farzaneh Najafi (not on Bsky?) on interval timing as an intrinsic property of visual cortex!
Intrinsic interval timing, not temporal prediction, underlies ramping dynamics in visual and parietal cortex, during passive behavior
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Intrinsic interval timing, not temporal prediction, underlies ramping dynamics in visual and parietal cortex, during passive behavior
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 22
As a grad student, I saw a neuroscientist give a talk about prefrontal neurons doing this or that (cognitive operations). At the end, an emeritus prof in the back asked “at what point can we say a neuron “does” something?”. There was no answer then, and I’m still hunting for it
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 19
There's implications/predictions for this, such that the insula should be more active for "empty" than "filled" intervals, and that disruption/enhancement of insula should specifically affect these types. Further implications for ADHD and Schizophrenia
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 19
Well, ok, sure!
Bit hard to summarize it in Bsky (Maybe we can discuss at TRF4, Marc?)
General idea is the insula serves as a kind of "backup" timing system. Sensorimotor stimuli dominate, but in their absence (or unreliability) the insula provides an interoceptive signal
Bit hard to summarize it in Bsky (Maybe we can discuss at TRF4, Marc?)
General idea is the insula serves as a kind of "backup" timing system. Sensorimotor stimuli dominate, but in their absence (or unreliability) the insula provides an interoceptive signal
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 18
Indeed! Craig's interoceptive model of timing is a great one, especially as we see so much evidence pointing to the insula and timing.
I have my own theory of what the insula is doing for time. Maybe one day I'll get to test it 😇
I have my own theory of what the insula is doing for time. Maybe one day I'll get to test it 😇
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 17
Giving credit to @wanjawolff.bsky.social
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 17
EFFORT AND BOREDOM SHAPE OUR EXPERIENCE OF TIME
Situations change over time, and so does our experience of them. For example, a task may initially feel engaging but can, over time, become monotonous…
www.sciencedirect.com
I found this paper very boring*
Effort and Boredom Shape our Experience of Time
*No I didn't. And, surprise! They propose the insula as a link between boredom and perceived duration
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Effort and Boredom Shape our Experience of Time
*No I didn't. And, surprise! They propose the insula as a link between boredom and perceived duration
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Raúl Pacheco-Vega, Jill A. Jacobson
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 16
WE ARE HIRING!!
Official posting coming soon for a tenure track assistant professor job in Psychology at George Mason University. Focus on Computational Cognitive Neuroscience and AI.
I’m chairing the search committee, so DMs and emails welcome.
Official posting coming soon for a tenure track assistant professor job in Psychology at George Mason University. Focus on Computational Cognitive Neuroscience and AI.
I’m chairing the search committee, so DMs and emails welcome.
Martin Wiener
@martinwiener.bsky.social
· Sep 13
It could be? Historically, it's simply been the difference between a constant stimulus (e.g. 1s tone) or two discrete stimuli for demarcating a time interval (e.g. 2 tone pips separated by 1s). Both indicate the same interval (1s) but the former seems longer.