THE AMERICAN
Journal of Psychology
Founded by G. Stanley Hall in 1887.
A THEORY OF TIME-PERCEPTION.
By W. P. Montague, Columbia University.
I.
The Specious Present.
The first question to be faced in a study of time-perception is the question of the "specious present;" for without the consciousness of an extended segment, or period, of past time it would be impossible to perceive either duration or succession. This problem of the specious present is not only the most important,—it is also the most perplexing of the many problems of our time consciousness. It is a case in which sense-perception presents as an actuality what Reason must regard as an impossibility. The present of metaphysical or conceptual time is a point, separating past and future; the present of psychological time—the specious present—is a continuous segment extending appreciably into the past. We cannot hope to solve this antinomy by violating Reason; we must not accept the presence of what is no longer present as a reality. Sense must be subordinated to Reason, and the specious present must be regarded as specious, as an illusion which is somehow explicable on the assumption that the real present is a point. The problem may then be stated as follows:
How is it that at any one moment there can appear to be present several moments?
II.
The Measurement of Time.
Time is the form of change, and the amount of change is the measure of the time which is perceived to have elapsed during the change, precisely as the size of a body is the measure of the
