Abstract

The author is a Czech physiologist who has given many years of experimental study to the temporal sense in man. He reviews the psychological literature on the sense of time, then describes his own experiments and the theory which he thinks explains them. He believes there are biological rhythms which determine our physiological sense of time and in particular that the alpha rhythm of the brain provides the fundamental reference rhythm by which the organism measures time. This rhythm is autonomous, unchanging in the course of time, present when not evident externally and thus very suitable for time measurement. Experimental evidence for this view reported in the book concerns laborious studies of temporally conditioned reflexes in man carried out by the author over a number of years. He hedges his conclusions and concedes that there is much more work to be done, but his work is both interesting and important. There is little philosophizing in the book, but there is much of philosophical importance.--R. H. K.