Time perception

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Perception of time is a fuzzy collective term for intellectual ( cognitive ) phenomena such as sense of time , time awareness , sense of time , simultaneity / successive , subjective time and time quality .

Basics

Conceptual systematization

In empirical time perception research, a distinction is made between time passage , time experience or time flow and permanent judgments ( timing ).

By experiencing the flow of time one understands the intuition to understand time as a continuous flow or as something moving. Rating scales are suitable for recording time flow experiences. Possible items in a questionnaire with a scale from 1–10 are, for example, "How quickly does time go by for you?" and “does time go by rather quickly or rather slowly?”.

Permanent judgments are estimates of the duration of a time interval. The decisive factor here is the relationship between the actual duration of an objective stimulus variable (time interval) and the subjectively perceived duration of this. Typical psychophysical tasks (psychophysics) for recording the estimated duration are estimates, production, reproduction and discrimination of time intervals.

In the range of very short durations ( milliseconds) , the perception of duration changes into the “simple” perception of temporal sequence. The perceived temporal order of discrete events includes the aspects of temporal succession and simultaneity .

Experimental paradigms for the investigation of permanent judgments (timing)

In research on perception psychology, a distinction is usually made between prospective long-term judgments (“prospective timing”) and retrospective long-term judgments (“retrospective timing”). In the case of tasks that record prospective permanent judgments, the test subjects are informed about the task so that they can prepare for the fact that a time perception judgment is to be given after the presentation of a stimulus (e.g. sound, visual stimulus). Accordingly, prospective timing tasks are also referred to as attention-related tasks. The time intervals are usually short and many individual runs are possible.

In retrospective tasks, subjects are only informed about the task after a stimulus has been presented so that they can give their judgments retrospectively. For this reason, this type of task is also referred to as a memory-related task. The stimuli presented tend to be longer and cannot be repeated.

1) Verbal time estimation

The subjects have to estimate a period of time - either retrospectively or prospectively. This could look like test subjects in a given time unit, e.g. B. seconds should estimate how long a visually presented stimulus is on the screen. The duration of the presentation of the stimuli for this type of task is usually a few seconds or minutes. In order to ensure more reliable results, the stimuli are presented several times and the individual estimates are then averaged. A difference with the objective presentation time is then calculated from the subjective estimate, so that a measure of the accuracy or deviation from the objective time is obtained.

2) interval production

Here, test subjects are supposed to produce an interval of a certain length by motor, for example by pressing a button. A corresponding task could be: "Please press the button after 10 seconds." This task can be repeated several times and each take a few seconds to minutes.

3) interval reproduction

In the case of interval reproduction, the test subjects first have to repeat the duration of one, e.g. B. Visually or aurally presented, learn intervals. You should then try to repeat this learned interval as precisely as possible with your motor. This can be implemented by repeatedly pressing a key. The intervals to be reproduced are usually in the range of a few seconds.

4) Interval comparison or discrimination

The aim of this task is to compare several intervals with one another. So z. B. presented two intervals (e.g. 1s and 1.05s), whereupon the test person should give an estimate of which of the two intervals was longer. In this way, the perception threshold can also be determined or a statement can be made about the subject's temporal resolution.

It could be shown that the subsequent perception within the same modality depends among other things on the stimulus intensity (see stimulus ) and on the factors of the attitude. If events that excite different sensory organs are compared, their different response times as well as the difference in neural transmission times up to the mutual reflection of the events in the central nervous system have a significant influence on the subsequent perception. The experiments of the Swiss developmental psychologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget refute the assumption that subsequent perception is an innate ability. "There is no such thing as a primitive intuition of simultaneity."

In the foreground of studies on the perception of time intervals were problems of differentiating between stimulus intervals, including the determination of the thresholds , as well as the analysis of the absolute impression of time duration and the regularities of time interval estimation. Size estimates resulted in a relationship between objective and subjective intervals with an exponent close to one that can be represented as a power law. The relative perception of time intervals depends to a large extent on stimulus conditions such as the abundance of events and on psychological factors, as well as on experiences of monotony.

An important aspect of time perception studies is the detection of excellent temporal event arrangements. Examples of this are the repetition of events over time and time periodicities .

Permanent judgments and counting

Internal counting can have different effects on the accuracy of people's time estimates, depending on the length of the interval to be estimated.

In the case of rather short intervals (duration in the range of seconds up to a maximum of 45 s), this strategy had proven to be helpful in earlier studies by Getty and others and improved the accuracy of an estimate with regard to the length of a time interval. Should someone make a statement about when a short period t of a few seconds had elapsed, internal counting could help him / her to determine the corresponding end point more precisely. If a person was given such a task in an experiment, most people intuitively applied this or another strategy (e.g. rhythmic typing) to divide time, as long as this was not explicitly prohibited. Theories about how this approach affects the assessment were assigned to two classes:

1. According to Weber-Fechner's law / Weber's law , the accuracy of the estimation of the duration of t should increase the more subdivisions of the interval n are made.

2. Proportional variance models (eg, Creelman's model), on the other hand, would assume no change in the fluctuations in the estimation period with regard to t in relation to the number of subdivisions n .

Getty's theoretical and empirical data-checked studies from the 1970s then came to the conclusion that it actually seems to be advantageous for people to reduce the time until a longer time interval t by subdividing into a certain number of n smaller intermediate intervals (e.g. by counting seconds in thought). This result is consistent with theories based on Weber's law. A few years later, however, these results could not be confirmed in studies by Hicks & Allen - the authors stated that in their investigations internal counting tended to lead to underestimations of the elapsed interval t . The latest studies by Thönes and Hecht were unable to replicate the previous results in either direction - in a series of experiments they found no differences between people who used internal counting as a strategy compared to people who intuitively determined the duration of a short time interval t .

On the contrary, if a person is supposed to give an estimate with regard to a longer time interval (60 s and 90 s), internal counting seems to lead to an underestimation / overproduction compared to an intuitive determination; the estimated (produced) end point therefore lies after the actually measured end of the interval t when counting .

This overproduction of time at longer time intervals could not be explained by a word length effect in further investigations. Attention effects could also be excluded as a cause for this observation, since people who used internal counting were consistently more precise (in the sense of less variable) in assessing the duration of the time interval compared to people who had used internal counting as a strategy. The current findings on the accuracy of intuitive assessments of both short and longer time intervals, on the other hand, tend to support the idea of ​​an internal clock that is able to estimate the duration of time intervals well (accurately) independently of higher cognitive processes. So counting doesn't help when it comes to producing a time interval as precisely as possible.

Neurobiological basics

In imaging studies , the basal ganglia and the right parietal lobe in particular were found to be important for the development of the human sense of time. This also sheds new light on some disorders with disorders of the sense of time (such as Parkinson's or attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder ).

swell

Simultaneous perception of time is a more complex phenomenon than it appears at first glance. A distinction is made between the following perception thresholds:

  • The threshold from which two events are recognized as separate (fusion threshold) depends on the respective sense organ . Optical impressions must be 20 to 30 milliseconds apart in order to be separated in time, while three milliseconds are sufficient for acoustic perception .
  • The threshold from which the sequence of two stimuli can be differentiated (order threshold ) is about 30 to 40 milliseconds, regardless of the type of perception, but is always based on the slowest stimulus transmission.
  • In addition, the perception of the present is indicated by a three-second period, this period is called the present duration.

Objective and subjective time

In the formulations of the colloquial language , the subjective perception of time is expressed in relation to the passage of objective time. At the same time, the respective use of these formulations expresses an evaluation of events, conditions and one's own person . Examples for this are:

  • (to have no time
  • Time flies (not)
  • take (no) time
  • Gain / lose time
  • give / steal time from someone
  • Kill time
  • Time is running out

In literature (e.g. " The Magic Mountain " by Thomas Mann ) and in film , especially in the science fiction genre, the motif of deviation, reversal or overcoming the regular flow of time is sometimes presented. As a stylistic device that can back story a story serve. Martin Amis' “ Arrow of Time ” is a good example of this. In the film this stylistic device was u. a. used in " Memento ". Other stylistic devices are also slow motion or time lapse . The difference between the narrative time and the narrated time is significant .

The quality of time describes certain criteria of perception that are connected with the sense of time. In the para-scientific to esoteric environment, attempts are made to embed the regularities of the perception of time in structures that go beyond personal perception.

In hypnosis research, time distortion applies. H. slowed or accelerated perception of time, as a trance phenomenon.

sense of time

The sense of time - also: the sense of time - describes an ability in humans and animals to estimate the duration of the objective process for certain sequences of processes, whereby subjective impressions of the course duration arise.

description

Research has shown that for the duration of an objective process there are no special cells in the brain that measure the passage of time. When assessing the duration of an objective process, the brain relies on a measure of the mental activities that result from occupation during the process. The following sensations arise:

  1. If an objective process excites a high level of mental activity, the idea arises that the process lasts for a long time
  2. If an objective process excites a little mental activity, the idea arises that the process only lasts a short time

In this context, mental activity is understood to mean the number of thought processes in the brain. A typical test setup is to estimate the time interval between two signals that are sensually perceived. If the subject's signals are known, the interval between the known signals is estimated to be shorter than that between two unknown signals, with the test arrangement always choosing the same time intervals between the known and unknown signals.

Another conclusion about the sensation of the duration of a covered distance results from the impressions when driving to the place of work. This creates the impression that the return journey takes less time than the way there to work, because the return journey appears to be known and requires less attention with thought processes.

With regard to the general sense of time depending on age, the following conclusion can be drawn: In older people, it happens less often that they have to deal with new impressions - so older people have the impression that the known processes run faster.

The feeling of why in a "waiting state", ie in a state where one waits for the beginning of an objective process, the perception of time assumes an increasingly longer duration of the waiting process, has not yet been clarified. Obviously, however, with a direct fixation on a period of time, the perception of duration takes place as a reversal: presumably every perception of time is blocked.

The internal clock: The speed of the internal clock and its time units are variable. Are many time units called up in an interval d. H. “The clock is ticking faster”, so a time interval seems long to us because many time units “have passed”.

Emotions associated with dangerous situations, such as fear or anger, ensure that our internal clock "ticks faster". The reason for this is presumably attentional processes: many perceptual units either ensure a high temporal resolution of salient situations, or time is paid less attention due to a lack of attention. This makes us feel that when we are afraid, time seems to stand still.

Experiments on rhesus monkeys at the University of California, San Francisco showed an assessment of the passage of time in the animals, which depends on the movement vision of a moving object. After a certain repetition of the process, the monkeys had developed an idea of ​​when the object would change direction (2). A distraction of the monkeys by other stimuli failed. The monkeys received an estimate of the duration of the movement of the object based on the ratio of the speed of the object to the distance traveled.

The following findings about the sense of time can thus be assumed:

  1. People's sense of time arises from the course of an activity and the associated thought processes
  2. The brain plays a role insofar as coordinating functions work in the cerebellum
  3. From the pathological findings of the injuries in this brain region there is no recognizable impairment of the sense of time, which confirms the assumption that there is no special brain region for the sense of time

Planning types

In chronopsychology , a distinction is made between through-timers and in-timers , which should be in a ratio of 50: 3. Two different types of planning are known in the perception of the passage of time:

  • Through-timers plan their daily and weekly routines on schedule, adhere to fixed times and oversee larger periods of time.
  • In-timers, on the other hand, see the moment and live in the moment. Therefore, there may be difficulties with your punctuality .

See also

literature

  • Jay Griffiths: Pip Pip. A sideways look at time . Flamingo, London 1999, ISBN 0-00-655177-7 .
  • Heiko Hecht: Time perception as movement perception . In: Nora Mewis, Stefan Schlag (Ed.): Time . Nora Mewis, Mainz 2006, pp. 61-78, ISBN 978-3-00-019249-4 .
  • Klaus Peter Müller: No time to live. Philosophical essays on the experience of time in modern times , Tectum, Marburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8288-2956-5 .
  • Stefan Klein : Time. The stuff that life is made of, instructions for use. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-10-039610-5 .
  • Rudolf Wendorff: Time and Culture. History of time consciousness in Europe. 3. Edition. Opladen 1985.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sven Thönes, Daniel Oberfeld: Time perception in depression: A meta-analysis . In: Journal of Affective Disorders . tape 175 , April 1, 2015, ISSN  0165-0327 , p. 359–372 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jad.12.057.2014 ( sciencedirect.com [accessed September 16, 2019]).
  2. ^ A b Sven Thönes, Kurt Stocker: A standard conceptual framework for the study of subjective time . In: Consciousness and Cognition . tape 71 , May 1, 2019, ISSN  1053-8100 , p. 114–122 , doi : 10.1016 / j.concog.2019.04.004 ( sciencedirect.com [accessed September 16, 2019]).
  3. ↑ Simon Grondin: Timing and time perception: A review of recent behavioral and neuroscience findings and theoretical directions . In: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics . tape 72 , no. 3 , April 2010, ISSN  1943-3921 , p. 561-582 , doi : 10.3758 / APP.72.3.561 ( springerlink.com [accessed September 16, 2019]).
  4. ^ Jean Piaget : Introduction to Genetic Epistemology . Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt 1973, p. 82, ISBN 3-518-27606-9 .
  5. ^ A b David Getty: Counting processes in human timing . In: Perception & Psychophysics . tape 20 , no. 3 , 1976, p. 191-197 .
  6. ↑ C. Douglas Creelman: Human Discrimination of Auditory Duration . In: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America . tape 34 , no. 5 , May 1, 1962, ISSN  0001-4966 , pp. 582-593 , doi : 10.1121 / 1.1918172 ( scitation.org [accessed September 16, 2019]).
  7. ^ Robert E. Hicks, Deborah A. Allen: Counting eliminates the repetition effect in judgments of temporal duration . In: Acta Psychologica . tape 43 , no. 5 , January 1, 1979, ISSN  0001-6918 , pp. 361-366 , doi : 10.1016 / 0001-6918 (79) 90030-1 ( sciencedirect.com [accessed September 16, 2019]).
  8. ↑ Sven Thönes, Heiko Hecht: Counting does not improve the accuracy of long time productions . In: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics . tape 79 , no. 8 , 2017, p. 2576-2589 .
  9. ↑ Healthyplace.com: Brain Areas Critical To Human Time Sense Identified
  10. ↑ Gottfried Gerstbach : Analysis of personal errors in passage observations of stars. in: Geoscientific Communications , Volume 7, pp. 51–102, TU Vienna 1975, ISSN  1811-8380 .
  11. ↑ Stopwatch in the brain . Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  12. ^ Javier F. Medina, Megan R. Carey, Stephen G. Lisberger: The Representation of Time for Motor Learning . In: Neuron . 45, 2005, p. 157. doi : 10.1016 / j.neuron.2004.12.017 .