Modeling perisaccadic time perception

Abstract

There is an impressive scarcity of quantitative models of the clock patterns in the brain. We propose a mesoscopic approach, i.e. neither a description at single neuron level, nor at systemic level/too coarse granularity, of the time perception at the time of the saccade. This model uses functional pathway knowledge and is inspired by, and integrates, recent findings in both psychophysics and neurophysiology. Perceived time delays in the perisaccadic window are shown numerically consistent with recent experimental measures. Our model provides explanation for several experimental outcomes on saccades, estimates popu-lation variance of the error in time perception and represent a meaningful example for bridging psychophysics and neurophysiology. Finally we found that the insights into information processing during saccadic events lead to considerations on engineering exploitation of the underlying phenomena.