Prospective timing, attention and the switch - A response to 'Gating or switching? gating is a better model of prospective timing' by Zakay (Reprinted from Behavioural Processes, vol 50, pg 1-7, 1998)

In response to the 'Switching or gating' paper (Lejeune, H., 1998. Switchin g or gating? The attentional challenge in cognitive models of psychological time. Behav. Proc. 43, 127-145), Zakay argued that attention allocation to time should reflect attentional processes ill general and suggested that t he attentional gate model (AGM) has more explanatory power than the tempora l information processing model (TIP) of Church (Church, R.M., 1984. Propert ies of the internal dock. In: Gibbon, J., Allan, L., (Eds.), Timing and Tim e Perception, vol. 423. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. New Yor k, pp. 566 - 582). The first point might not he challenged, provided that t he specificity of the temporal stimulus is taken into account. Concerning t he second point, we argue that the TIP model can account for human prospect ive timing and discuss differences between attention versus expectancy or m otivation. We prefer a 'satellite' attention allocation process, targeting the switch and reference memory (Meck, W.H., 1983. Selective adjustment of the speed of the internal clock and memory processes. J. Exp. Psychol.: Ani m. Behav. Proc. 9, 171 - 201) to an attentional gate serially included in t he TIP model of Church. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.