Prior task experience affects temporal prediction and estimation

It has been shown that prior experience with a task improves temporal prediction, even when the amount of prior experience with the task is often limited. The present study targeted the role of extensive training on temporal prediction. Expert and intermediate runners had to predict the time of a 5 km running competition. Furthermore, after the race's completion, participants had to estimate their running time so that it could be compared with the predicted time. Results show that expert runners were more accurate than intermediate runners for both predicting and estimating their running time. Furthermore, only expert runners had an estimation that was more accurate than their initial prediction. The results confirm the role of prior task experience in both temporal prediction and estimation. -- KEYWORDS : estimation; expert performance; prediction; running; task experience; timing and time perceptio

Prospective and Retrospective Time Estimates of Children: A Comparison Based on Ecological Tasks

Children's time estimation literature lacks of studies comparing prospective and retrospective time estimates of long lasting ecological tasks, i.e. tasks reflecting children's daily activities. In the present study, children were asked to estimate prospectively or retrospectively how much time they played a video game or read a magazine. Regardless of the task, the results revealed that prospective time estimates were longer than the retrospective ones. Also, time estimates of the video game task were longer, less accurate and more variable than those of the reading task. The results are discussed in the light of the current literature about time estimation of long lasting ecological tasks

Timing and time perception : a selective review and commentary on recent reviews

Keywords : Time perception, Attention, Animals, Humans, Commentar

Interval discrimination across different duration ranges with a look at spatial compatibility and context effects

In the present study, a time discrimination task was used to investigate the effect of different contexts for intervals varying from 400 to 1600 ms. A potential time-space interaction was controlled, and participants used both manual responses (Experiments 1 and 2) and vocal responses (Experiment 3). Three ranges of durations were employed (short, middle and long), and within each range condition, three standard values were used (400, 700, and 1000 ms; 700, 1000, and 1300 ms; and 1000, 1300, and 1600 ms). Within each range, standard intervals were randomized (Experiments 1 and 3) or remained constant (Experiment 2) within a block of trials. Our results suggest that context influences time discrimination performances only when the temporal range under investigation is below 1300 ms and the temporal intervals varied within blocks. In the case of temporal intervals longer than 1300 ms, participants presented a tendency to respond “long” independently of the procedure used. Moreover, our results suggested that performances in a discrimination task are mainly influenced by the fact of varying standard durations within blocks, and not much by the time-space compatibility. -- Keywords : time discrimination, context effect, spatial compatibility, temporal intervals, manual responses, verbal response

La psychologie au quotidien 2

Peut-on vraiment maîtriser son poids ? Peut-on guérir d’un choc post-traumatique ? Qu’est-ce qu’une personnalité normale et une personnalité pathologique ? Les rêves sont-ils liés à la personnalité ? Comment peut-on reconnaître les symptômes dépressifs ? Quels sont les facteurs de risque et les facteurs de protection de la maladie d’Alzheimer ? Comment intervient le facteur religieux dans le fonctionnement social et les contacts interpersonnels ? Quels sont les dérapages les plus fréquents liés à l’utilisation de Facebook ? Où peut-on aller chercher de l’aide psychologique ? C’est à ce genre de questions que ce livre permet de répondre. Cet ouvrage définit quelques types de troubles psychologiques afin d’aider le lecteur à les repérer au quotidien. Il donne aussi des pistes de solutions concrètes pour aider à composer avec ces troubles et pour évaluer si une aide psychologique extérieure est nécessaire.

An Electroencephalographic Investigation of the Filled-Duration Illusion

The study investigated how the brain activity changed when participants were engaged in a temporal production task known as the “filled-duration illusion.” Twelve right-handed participants were asked to memorize and reproduce the duration of time intervals (600 or 800 ms) bounded by two flashes. Random trials contained auditory stimuli in the form of three 20 ms sounds between the flashes. In one session, the participants were asked to ignore the presence of the sounds, and in the other, they were instructed to pay attention to sounds. The behavioral results showed that duration reproduction was clearly affected by the presence of the sounds and the duration of time intervals. The filled-duration illusion occurred when there were sounds; the participants overestimated the interval in the 600-ms interval condition with sounds. On the other hand, the participants underestimated the 800-ms interval condition without sounds. During the presentation of the interval to be encoded, the contingent negative variation (CNV) appeared around the prefrontal scalp site, and P300 appeared around the parieto-central scalp site. The CNV grew larger when the intervals contained the sounds, whereas the P300 grew larger when the intervals were 800 ms and did not contain the sounds. During the reproduction of the interval to be presented, the Bereitschaftspotential (BP) appeared over the fronto-central scalp site from 1000 ms before the participants’ response. The BP could refer to the decision making process associated with the duration reproduction. The occurrence of three event-related potentials (ERPs), the P300, CNV, and BP, suggests that the fronto-parietal area, together with supplementary motor area (SMA), is associated with timing and time perception, and magnitude of these potentials is modulted by the “filled-duration illusion”

Sex effect in the temporal perception of faces expressing anger and shame

The aim of the present study was to investigate sex-related variations in the perception of the duration of emotional stimuli (human faces). Twenty male and 20 female participants estimated the duration of angry, ashamed and neutral faces marking 0.4 to 1.6 s intervals. Female faces were used in one session, and male faces in the other. Compared to the angry faces condition, intervals were underestimated when ashamed faces were shown. However, the intervals in neither conditions were significantly overestimated or underestimated compared to the neutral condition. Even more critical is the fact that there was an underestimation by male participants of the duration of male faces compared to female faces; and female participants overestimated the duration in the anger condition, compared with the shame condition, only when male faces were presented. Moreover, the emotional effects on the participants’ performance were correlated to inter-individual differences in empathic abilities. The findings are discussed in terms of sex differences, of social context, and of how attention is solicited and arousal generated by emotions. Keywords: Psychological time, emotions, sex differenc