Prospective timing is a true temporal task in that it relies on the brain’s timing circuits. In contrast, retrospective timing is in a sense not a timing task at all; it is rather an attempt to infer the passage of time by reconstructing events stored in memory. The distinction between prospective and retrospective timing explains a few of the mysteries about our subjective sense of time, including what some have called the holiday paradox.5 A five-hour wait for a delayed plane on your vacation trip to Greece can seem endless as it is unfolding, while an exciting day touring Athens flies by. A
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