The right hemisphere is responsible for our sense of time as continuous and unified
The right hemisphere sees things in their context, and time is the context that gives meaning to everything in this world, and conversely everything that has meaning for us in this world, everything that has a place in our lives, exists in time. This is not true of abstractions and re-presentations of entities, but all that is is subject to time. The sense of time passing is associated with sustained attention (The right hemisphere handles alertness, vigilance, sustained attention, and divided attention), and even if for that reason alone, it is only to be expected that this arises in the right hemisphere, subserved by the right prefrontal cortex and inferior parietal lobe. The ability to compare duration in time is clearly better performed by the right hemisphere, and relies on the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In fact virtually all aspects of the appreciation of time, in the sense of something lived through, with a past, present and future, are dependent on the right hemisphere, principally the right prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex. The sense of past or future is severely impaired in right hemisphere damage. By contrast, the left hemisphere perceives time as a sequential series of fragmented individual moments.
References
- Mcgilchrist, Iain. (2010). The Master and His Emissary Chapter 2 What Do the Hemispheres Do (155). London, UK: Yale University Press.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Neuropsychology Status:☀️