Methodological, Modal, and Cross-Modal Studies of Short Interval Judgements of Duration, with Specific Reference to the Development of a Model of the Internal Clock
A series of experiments was carried out to investigate: (1) the effect of a background sound applied at either the input and/or the output stages on judgements of visual intervals made using the methods of verbal estimation, operative estimation, and reproduction; (2) the effect of lack of knowledge of the method of response during teh input stage of temporal information on the judgement made; (3) the effect of auditory visual cross-modal stimuli on reproductions of intervals; (4) the effect of lack of knowledge of the mode of response during the input of cross-modal temporal stimuli.
Analysis of the data revealed: (1) the background sound, when applied in the standard stage of the method of verbal estimation, increased the estimate of the interval; when applied to the judgement stage of the method of operative estimation decreased the production of the interval; when applied to the standard stage of the method of reproduction increased the judgement of the interval; and when applied to the judgement stage of the method of reproduction decreased the reproduction of the interval; (2) that lack of knowledge of the method of response during the standard presentation may decrease the accuracy of the judgement; (3) that the auditory visual cross-modal difference in time estimation was consistent in both the input and output stages of the method of reproduction; (4) that lack of knowledge of teh mode of response during the standard stage of cross-modal temporal processing had no effect on the resulting judgements.
The results were discussed in terms of further defining the concept of an ‘internal clock’ hypothesized by Cohen (1965)