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Time flies faster if a person has a high working-memory capacity
James L Woehrle1, Joseph P Magliano
1Northern Illinois University, USA.
Acta Psychologica
|January 17, 2012
Summary
Individuals with low working memory capacity better perceive time duration when distracted, but perform worse on cognitive tasks. High-capacity individuals excel at cognitive tasks but sacrifice temporal accuracy.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
Background:
- Attention significantly influences time perception.
- Working memory capacity is a key indicator of attentional control.
- Low working memory capacity individuals struggle with sustained focus amidst distractions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how working memory capacity affects temporal duration perception during a concurrent cognitive task.
- To test the hypothesis that low-capacity individuals prioritize temporal monitoring over cognitive performance when faced with distractions.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed a cognitive task and a temporal duration judgment task simultaneously.
- Participants were categorized into low and high working memory capacity groups.
- Performance accuracy on both the cognitive and timing tasks was measured.
Main Results:
- Low working memory capacity participants showed higher accuracy on the timing task but lower accuracy on the cognitive task.
- High working memory capacity participants demonstrated superior performance on the cognitive task.
- High-capacity individuals' cognitive performance came at the expense of temporal duration monitoring.
Conclusions:
- Working memory capacity modulates the trade-off between cognitive task performance and temporal perception.
- Individuals with lower working memory capacity may allocate more attentional resources to temporal monitoring when cognitive load is high.
- Attentional control, as indexed by working memory capacity, is crucial for balancing competing cognitive demands.
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