Explaining and Deflating the Perceived Unity of Time

Abstract A new explanatory challenge of time perception presented by Gerardo Viera (2020) lies in reconciling three different ways time appears perceptually unified with the empirical data of how the mechanisms underlying time perception are fragmented and dissociable. Viera (2020) argues that existing models of time perception that locate this unity at the level of mechanisms fail to meet this explanatory challenge. I propose that this challenge can be met if we adopt Pedersen’s (2024) hybrid theory of temporal binding. This theory accounts for the temporal organisation of perception without taking it to be a function of synchronous processing or some centralised temporal integration mechanism. Instead, this organisation depends on the attentional modulation of hybrid retrodictive and predictive sensory processing. Effectively, the accounts suggest that temporal organisation of perception is achieved through selective attentional modulation that biases perception towards representing some subset sensory features that make up coherent and behaviourally useful perceptions. I explain how we can use this theory to account for the different kinds of perceived unity of time, proposed by Viera, while also accounting for the disunified organisation of the underlying mechanisms. This view entails that we should deflate the phenomenological richness of this perceived unity relative to the limits and selectivity of attention.