This book constitutes the documentation of the scientific outcome of the first meeting of the TIMELY network, the International Workshop on Multidisciplinary Aspects of Time and Time Perception, which took place in Athens, Greece, in October 2010. The 21 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. They cover the following topics: conceptual analysis and measurement of time; exploring factors associated with time perception variability; extending time research to ecologically-valid stimuli and real-world applications; and uncovering the neural correlates of time perception.

Timing and Time Perception: Procedures, Measures, and Applications is a one-of-a-kind, collective effort to present the most utilized and known methods on timing and time perception. Specifically, it covers methods and analysis on circadian timing, synchrony perception, reaction/response time, time estimation, and alternative methods for clinical/developmental research. The book includes experimental protocols, programming code, and sample results and the content ranges from very introductory to more advanced so as to cover the needs of both junior and senior researchers. We hope that this will be the first step in future efforts to document experimental methods and analysis both in a theoretical and in a practical manner. Contributors are: Patricia V. Agostino, Rocío Alcalá-Quintana, Fuat Balcı, Karin Bausenhart, Richard Block, Ivana L. Bussi, Carlos S. Caldart, Mariagrazia Capizzi, Xiaoqin Chen, Ángel Correa, Massimiliano Di Luca, Céline Z. Duval, Mark T. Elliott, Dagmar Fraser, David Freestone, Miguel A. García-Pérez, Anne Giersch, Simon Grondin, Nori Jacoby, Florian Klapproth, Franziska Kopp, Maria Kostaki, Laurence Lalanne, Giovanna Mioni, Trevor B. Penney, Patrick E. Poncelet, Patrick Simen, Ryan Stables, Rolf Ulrich, Argiro Vatakis, Dominic Ward, Alan M. Wing, Kieran Yarrow, and Dan Zakay.

How do people perceive time? This book presents a wealth of contemporary and classical research, including some of the history and philosophy of time perception. Influential internal clock-based models of time perception receive an in-depth but non-technical introduction and discussion. The role of cognition and emotion in perceiving time is also explored, as well as questions derived from time experience in daily life, such as why time seems to pass more quickly in one situation rather than another. Classical and modern research on timing in children is reviewed, as well as work on time perception and time experience in older people. Leading recent models of animal timing are also discussed in a non-mathematical way.

Optimized interaction of the brain with environment requires the four-dimensional representation of space-time in the neuronal circuits. Information processing is an important part of this interaction, which is critically dependent on time-dimension. Information processing has played an important role in the evolution of mammals, and has reached a level of critical importance in the lives of primates, particularly the humans. The entanglement of time-dimension with information processing in the brain is not clearly understood at present. Time-dimension in physical world – the environment of an organism – can be represented by the interval of a pendulum swing (the cover page depicts temporal unit with the help of a swinging pendulum). Temporal units in neural processes are represented by regular activities of pacemaker neurons, tonic regular activities of proprioceptors and periodic fluctuations in the excitability of neurons underlying brain oscillations. Moreover, temporal units may be representationally associated with time-bins containing bits of information (see the Editorial), which may be studied to understand the entanglement of time-dimension with neural information processing. The optimized interaction of the brain with environment requires the calibration of neural temporal units. Neural temporal units are calibrated as a result of feedback processes occurring during the interaction of an organism with environment. Understanding the role of time-dimension in the brain information processing requires a multidisciplinary approach, which would include psychophysics, single cell studies and brain recordings. Although this Special Issue has helped us move forward on some fronts, including theoretical understanding of calibration of time-information in neural circuits, and the role of brain oscillations in timing functions and integration of asynchronous sensory information, further advancements are needed by developing correct computational tools to resolve the relationship between dynamic, hierarchical neural oscillatory structures that form during the brain’s interaction with environment.

Researchers working in many fields of psychology and neuroscience are interested in the temporal structure of experience, as well as the experience of time, at scales of a few milliseconds up to a few seconds as well as days, months, years, and beyond. This Research Topic supposes that broadly speaking, the field of "time psychology" can be organized by distinguishing between "perceptual" and "conceptual" time-scales. Dealing with conceptual time: "mental time travel," also called mental simulation, self-projection, episodic-semantic memory, prospection/foresight, allows humans (and perhaps other animals) to imagine and plan events and experiences in their personal futures, based in large part on memories of their personal pasts, as well as general knowledge. Moreover, contents of human language and thought are fundamentally organized by a temporal dimension, enmeshed with it so thoroughly that it is usually expressible only through spatial metaphors. But what might such notions have to do with experienced durations of events lasting milliseconds up to a few seconds, during the so-called "present moment" of perception-action cycle time? This Research Topic is organized around the general premise that, by considering how mental time travel might "scale down" to time perception (and vice-versa, no less), progress and integrative synthesis within- and across- scientific domains might be facilitated. Bipolar configurations of future- and past-orientations of the self may be repeated in parallel across conceptual and perceptual time-scales, subsumed by a general "Janus-like" feedforward-feedback system for goal-pursuit. As an example, it is notable that the duality of "prospection" and semantic-episodic memory operating at conceptual time-scales has an analogue in perception-action cycle time, namely the interplay of anticipatory attention and working memory. Authors from all areas of psychology and neuroscience are encouraged to submit articles of any format accepted by the journal (Original Research, Methods, Hypothesis & Theory, Reviews, etc.), which might speak to questions about time and temporal phenomena at long and/or short time-scales.

How does music manifest through time and, simultaneously, how does time manifest through music?