Theoretical Models of Temporal Generalization and Bisection in Humans

Abstract

As noted in the previous chapter, one advantage of SET as an account of human timing is that it can give rise to quantitative theoretical models of performance on timing tasks. Furthermore, these models generally have psychologically meaningful parameters, and therefore can account for differences in the behaviour among different groups or the same groups in different conditions in terms of differences in underlying psychological processes. This chapter introduces some of the commonest theoretical models used over the last 20 years or so, discusses the ways in which they were developed, and outlines what seem to me to be their strengths and weaknesses. Temporal generalization and bisection have been chosen here because (a) well-developed theoretical models exist for both of them, and (b) quantitative models have been fitted to data in a large number of experiments, as later chapters will show.