The psychological investigation of subjective time : new concepts and contemporary research methods
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Abstract
In contrast to physical (objective) time, the subjective representation or perception of time is influenced by various factors. For example, in everyday life, humans perceive time to pass slower or faster depending on the situational context, and this impression may lead to an over- or underestimation of duration. Based on five sub-projects, the present work investi-gates several different phenomena in the field of subjective time. The first two sub-projects (meta-analytical reviews) focused on time perception in clinical populations. The results indicate that time passes less quickly for depressive patients. Judgments of duration, however, do not differ between patients and healthy control subjects. Patients with schizophrenia show a strong increase in the variability of their duration judgments, whereas mean duration esti-mates do not differ between patients and controls. In sub-projects three and five, I investi-gated whether subjective time can by influenced by (subtle) interpersonal cues. The results indicate rather weak effects of gaze direction on duration judgments and the spatialized representation of time (mental time lines). Sub-project four comprised two experiments on the effects of chronometric counting on the production of time intervals. Interestingly, while productions became less variable (more precise), the accuracy of time productions did not benefit from counting. Beyond the specific foci of the different sub-projects, the results from the present work approach some fundamental aspects of subjective time. Based on the meta-analytical review of time perception in depressive patients, factors that influence the subjec-tive passage of time do not necessarily affect the perception of duration. Therefore, passage and duration need to be conceptualized as disentangled temporal dimensions. The concept of passing time may be more closely related to the concept of a mental time than to the concept of duration. The meta-analytical review on time perception in patients with schizophrenia and the experiments on the effects of counting on time productions show that measures of accuracy and measures of precision reflect independent aspects of subjective time, which need to be considered carefully in models of time perception and by future research.