Time perception

About: Time perception is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1918 publications have been published within this topic receiving 87020 citations.

Losing track of time through delayed body representations

Abstract: The ability to keep track of time is perceived as crucial in most human societies However, to lose track of time may also serve an important social role, associated with recreational purpose To this end a number of social technologies are employed, some of which may relate to a manipulation of time perception through a modulation of body representation Here we investigated an influence of real-time or delayed videos of own-body representations on time perception in an experimental setup with virtual mirrors Seventy participants were asked to either stay in the installation until they thought that a defined time (90 s) had passed, or they were encouraged to stay in the installation as long as they wanted and after exiting were asked to estimate the duration of their stay Results show that a modulation of body representation by time-delayed representations of the mirror-video displays influenced time perception Furthermore, these time-delayed conditions were associated with a greater sense of arousal and intoxication We suggest that feeding in references to the immediate past into working memory could be the underlying mental mechanism mediating the observed modulation of time perception We argue that such an influence on time perception would probably not only be achieved visually, but might also work with acoustic references to the immediate past (eg, with music)

Detection performance for short visual stimuli depends on the duration of co-occuring auditory stimuli

Abstract: There is converging evidence that the duration of an auditory event can affect the perceived duration of a co-occurring visual event. When a brief visual stimulus is accompanied by a longer auditory stimulus, the perceived visual duration stretches. If this reflects a genuine sustain of visual stimulus perception, it should result in enhanced perception of non-temporal visual stimulus qualities. To test this hypothesis, in a temporal two-alternative forced choice task, 28 participants were asked to indicate whether a short (∼24 ms), peri-threshold, visual stimulus was presented in the first or in the second of two consecutive displays. Each display was accompanied by a sound of equal or longer duration (36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96, 190 ms) than the visual stimulus. As a control condition, visual stimuli of different durations (matching auditory stimulus durations) were presented alone. We predicted that visual detection can improve as a function of sound duration. Moreover, if the expected cross-modal effect reflects sustained visual perception it should positively correlate with the improvement observed for genuinely longer visual stimuli. Results showed that detection sensitivity (d′) for the 24 ms visual stimulus was significantly enhanced when paired with longer auditory stimuli ranging from 60 to 96 ms duration. The visual detection performance dropped to baseline levels with 190 ms sounds. Crucially, the enhancement for auditory durations 60–96 ms significantly correlates with the d′ enhancement for visual stimuli lasting 60–96 ms in the control condition. We conclude that the duration of co-occurring auditory stimuli not only influences the perceived duration of visual stimuli but reflects a genuine sustain in visual perception.

Evidence for content-dependent timing of real-life events during COVID-19 crisis

Abstract: How do people estimate the time of past events? A prominent hypothesis suggests that there are multiple timing systems which operate in parallel, depending on circumstances. However, quantitative evidence supporting this hypothesis focused solely on short time-scales (seconds to minutes) and lab-produced events. Furthermore, these studies typically examined the effect of the circumstance and the psychological state of the participant rather than the content of the timed events. Here, we provide, for the first time, support for multiple content-based timing systems when estimating the time of real-life events over long time-scales. The study was conducted during the COVID-19 crisis, which provided a rare opportunity to examine real-life time perception when many were exposed to similar meaningful events. Participants (N = 468) were asked to retrospectively estimate the time that has passed since prominent events, that were either related or unrelated to the pandemic. Results showed an overall time-inflation, which was decreased for events related to the pandemic. This indicates that long-term subjective timing of real-life events exists in multiple systems, which are affected not only by circumstances, but also by content.

Cognitive mechanisms involved in the subjective perception of time. A critical review

Abstract: IntroductionTiming and time perception are essential to survival and goal reaching in humans. The ability to correctly estimate time is fundamental in everyday activities (Buhusi & Meek, 2005). However, as research shows, the subjective perception of time is not isomorphic to objective or clock time and it can be distorted by a number of factors, some of them belonging to the characteristics of the time period and others belonging to the time experiencer (Block, 1989).This article has the objective to critically review the main empirical findings in time perception literature and to summarize and offer a critical perspective on the current cognitive models of psychological time.Variables that affect subjective time perceptionThe empirical studies that researchers have conducted in order to assess the variables that have an impact on the subjective time perception highlight the role of certain specific factors that affect temporal experiences: (a) Paradigm and method of assessment; (b) Characteristic of the time period; (c) Characteristic of the time experiencer (Block, 1989).a) Paradigm and method of assessment ParadigmA crucial distinction in any study involving the duration timing is that between the prospective paradigm and the retrospective paradigm. In the prospective paradigm, the study participant knows in advance that the task will involve time estimation, being aware of the fact that he or she needs to estimate duration.Prospective judgment tasks usually require that the participant will perform an activity for a specific duration, informing him or her in advance that time estimation will be solicited at the end of that activity. The prospective timing is considered to be a dual-task condition because the time experiencer has to divide attention between temporal (processing information about time) and nontemporal information (performing the specific task).The theoretical models used to describe and explain the cognitive processes in this paradigm emphasize the role of attention (Block & Zakay, 1996; Zakay & Block, 1996). These models assume that the signals reflecting the time passage are stored in a cognitive counter (Wearden, 2005). If the specific task that the person has to perform during the time interval is more complex and demanding, the person has fewer attentional resources available for temporal information processing and therefore there will be fewer signals stored in the cognitive counter (Zakay & Block, 2004). Therefore the experienced duration decreases as the difficulty of the task increases. On the other hand, if the task is relatively easy, the experienced duration increases, because the person has enough attentional resources for the temporal information and there will be more stored time units in the cognitive counter (Block & Zakay, 1997). In the retrospective paradigm, participants are not aware that they will be asked to judge duration. The experiments involving this paradigm usually require that the participant will perform a specific task for a certain duration, asking him or her about the length of the duration and the end of that task.The models of retrospective time experience use memory processes as explanations (Block, 1991; Ornstein, 1969; Poynter 1983). Most theorists argue that retrospective duration judgments increase as a function of stored and retrieved information (Block & Reed, 1978; Ornstein, 1969), thus offering memory-based models for the retrospective paradigm. One of the first memorystorage model proposed that remembered duration is a function of the amount of stored events during a time interval (Ornstein, 1969). Block (Block, 1989; Block & Reed, 1978) developed this model, proposing that remembered duration is a cognitive construction based on the availability of contextual changes stored in the memory during a specific time interval. These changes can be emotional, physical, environmental or of other types. …