Time perception and word recognition: an elaboration of the time-criterion account

Past research suggests that a time criterion guides responding in speeded word recognition tasks. The time-criterion account has been challenged, however, because it incorrectly predicts equivalent latencies for stimuli of differing difficulty when those stimuli are presented in the same trial block. By requiring participants to perform a lexical decision or naming task but to respond only once they had estimated that 1 sec had elapsed, we investigated the idea that stimulus difficulty effects in response latency might be at least partially due to time perception processes. Consistent with this idea, the participants produced shorter estimates of 1-sec intervals when processing easier stimuli (i.e., time seemed to pass faster when easier stimuli were processed). The implication is that understanding speeded word recognition performance will require looking beyond processes involved in acquiring information about the presented stimulus and examining more general response processes.