Dr. Joachim Lange | The rhythms of temporal perception

For many decades, brain activity before a stimulus has been regarded as non-informative neuronal noise. More recent evidence, however, shows that such prestimulus brain activity can have substantial influence on perception and neuronal processing. Specifically, cumulative evidence shows that ongoing neuronal oscillations – especially in the alpha- (8-12 Hz) and beta- (~13-30 Hz) band – in the prestimulus period play a prominent role for processing of the subsequent stimuli.

In my talk, I will report data from our recent studies on the role of prestimulus neuronal oscillations (mainly) for tactile temporal perception. In these studies, we aimed to critically test the proposed role of prestimulus neuronal oscillations. To this end, we manipulated the phase and frequency of prestimulus neuronal oscillations and measured the impact of these modulations on temporal perception.

These results support the notion of a crucial role of neuronal oscillations for neuronal processing and consequently for shaping perception. Finally, I will discuss theories how phase and/or frequency of ongoing neuronal oscillations might contribute to our subjective perception.