Internal clocks and fast living: do time-saving devices alleviate stress?

[Extract] Our perception of time appears to be controlled by some form of pacemaker-accumulator style internal clock. Through the use of mixed methods the current research aims to investigate whether technologies such as time saving devices are having an adverse affect on this internal clock

Got the time? Examining the effect of technological advancement on temporal judgements

Previous research (Blatchley et al, 2007) investigating the relationship between timing accuracy and computer use, highlighted a potential difference between individuals with high and low levels of computer usage. In order to further examine this phenomenon two experiments were conducted examining the effect that everyday technology use may be having on the human internal timing system. It was hypothesised that individuals using more everyday technologies would exhibit changes in timing consistent with an accelerated internal clock. In Experiment 1 participants completed the purposely developed Everyday Technology Usage Questionnaire (ETUQ) assessing everyday technology use, along with a duration estimation task. In Experiment 2, participants completed the same questionnaire to assess their technology use and an interval production task. MANOVA analyses showed significant differences between individuals with high and low technology use, in both the estimation and production tasks. On average all participants overestimated in estimation tasks, and under-produced in production tasks. However, participants with higher technology use overestimated and under-produced to a greater degree, indicative of a clock speed affect. These findings suggest that the relationship between everyday use of technology and temporal experience warrants further study. Potential mechanisms underlying this relationship are currently being investigated

What's the time? Examining whether technological advances are affecting our temporal judgements

[Extract] Theories of internal clock agree that variations in individual external stimuli may affect our internal representation of time, and this has been shown to hold in lab settings. However, our individual differences, and varying life experiences, and the possible implications for these on temporal experience have not received this same level of attention. Anthropologists/ Ethnographers and Social Psychologists have examined the cultural implications on the representation of time within society (for example Flaherty et al, 2005), yet the possible effects of society on any form of internal clock system remain to be examined in full within the cognitive realm

Internal clocks and fast living: do time-saving devices alleviate stress?

[Extract] Our perception of time appears to be controlled by some form of pacemaker-accumulator style internal clock. Through the use of mixed methods the current research aims to investigate whether technologies such as time saving devices are having an adverse affect on this internal clock

Multitasking and ad enjoyment: does our perception of time's passage mediate the relationship between multitasking and ad enjoyment

Previous research on the effects of multitasking on media content have found that content can become more positively evaluated when one is doing multiple tasks (Voorveld, 2011). Multitasking may be particularly likely to affect advertising because ads are often avoided by engaging in another task during exposure to the ad content (Speck & Elliott, 1997). When people multitask with media, ad messages are rarely the sole focus of attention. Chinchanachokchai et al. (2015) explored the relationship between multitasking and time perception as well as the relationship between multitasking and task enjoyment alongside ad evaluation. Their study found that the mediating role of the perception of time passing had a resulting positive effect on ad evaluation, and that positive evaluation was likely not due to limited capacity in the attention system. Rather, the feedback response to the ads appeared to be the feeling that time seemed to pass unexpectedly fast. This paper presents work which extends on Chinchanachokchai et al's project, again investigating the mediating effect of time perception on ad evaluation, this time using more generalizable, everyday tasks. Participants were tested on one computer screen which displayed between one and three tasks depending on condition. Tasks included Space Invaders gameplay, a reading comprehension task and television advertisement. Findings and implications are also discussed

Time perception and embodied rejection

[Extract] The need to belong represents a central part of the human psyche, and may be thwarted by social exclusion and rejection. Observations of rejection have indicated a host of dramatically destructive consequences of ostracism, such as increased accounts of antisocial and self-defeating behaviour, negative emotionality and depression. Given the extensive emotional impact of social rejection, as well as the connection between embodied emotions and perceptions of time, it is reasonable to suspect that innate abilities to perceive time are also affected when one is rejected by their peer groups

The effectiveness of digital technologies in Higher Education lectures

[Extract] There is increased pressure on University Lecturers to incorporate audio/visual digital technologies (e.g. podcasts) into their teaching. The existing small, but growing body of published research in is predominantly focused on: -Studies of perceived value -Usage of the technology -Podcasts as supplementary teaching materia

The effectiveness of MediaSite in higher education social psychology lectures

There is increased pressure on University Lecturers to incorporate audio/visual digital technologies (e.g. podcasts) into their teaching. The existing small, but growing body of published research in Higher Education is predominantly focussed on studies of perceived value, usage of the technology, and podcasts as supplementary teaching material (McGarr (2009); Baker (2008); Lazarus (2008)). The motivation for the current research was to evaluate the academic effectiveness of digitised lecture delivery in both Real Time (Live Streaming) and Delayed Time (Podcasts). Academic Effectiveness was operationally defined as the performance on tests designed to explore the degree of academic comprehension/retention of lecture material. The participants were first year Social Psychology students (n=157), randomly assigned to one of three conditions of lecture delivery. The three methods of delivery were live lecture (n=65), screened lecture in lecture theatre (n=69), and lecture delivered to individual work stations (n=23). The lecture was of 30 minutes duration, the topic chosen was unlikely to be familiar to the students and deemed to be conceptually difficult. Academic performance was tested using an MCQ test with both factual (3) and conceptual questions (2) administered following the lecture delivery. Student experience of the lecture was extracted from a Learning Experience Feedback Questionnaire (LEFQ). A Kruskal Wallis test indicated significant differences in academic performance across the three delivery methods (x2(2, N=157) =22.14, p<.001). Examination of the descriptive statistics suggested that those students at the screened lecture had poorer results on the MCQ test than those in the other lecture delivery conditions. The results of the study indicate that type of delivery can impact greatly on academic effectiveness. Factors to be controlled and/or manipulated in future studies include one/two way interaction with students, duration of digitised instruction, and repeat exposure

Transforming the practitioners: an exploration of the application of Threshold Concepts to a multidisciplinary professional development Masters course in Christian Leadership

[Extract] This case study details the impact of the application of a Threshold Concept approach (Cousins, 2010; Myers & Land, 2006) on the experience and performance of Practitioner-Students on a professional development Masters Program (The Masters in Christian Leadership in Education (MACLE)) offered by Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick in 2010-2011). The students were professional educators and mostly Principals in second level education in Ireland

The impact of the SMART program on cognitive and academic skills: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Online interventions promoted to enhance cognitive ability hold great appeal for their potential positive impact in social, employment, and educational domains. Cognitive training programs have, thus far, not been shown to influence performance on tests of general cognitive aptitude. Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training (SMART) is an online program that claims to raise intelligence quotient (IQ). This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the effect of SMART on indices of cognitive aptitude and academic performance. The review protocol was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42019132404). A systematic literature search of bibliographic databases (ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Scopus, Proquest Psychology) identified five studies (N = 195) that met the criterion for inclusion. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias ‘RoB 2’ tool. Overall, there was a moderate impact of SMART on measures of nonverbal IQ (g = 0.57, 95% CI [0.24, 0.89]). There was insufficient evidence to determine the impact of SMART on any other domain. All studies included in the review were judged to be at a high risk of bias for their primary outcome. Despite the methodological limitations of published studies to date, these initial findings suggest that a large-scale study of SMART is warranted