A computerized procedure for developing and administering time perception protocols: application to a sample of...

The principal goals of this work are: (a) To describe an integrated computerized procedure for designing, administering, and recording time perception experiments (more specifically, reaction time and time estimation) on human subjects; (b) To present the results of applying this procedure to the study of fourteen normal adolescents and fourteen normal adults. Individualized time perception protocols can be designed with this menu-driven highly interactive computer-program. Such protocols can then be used for testing experimental subjects. The programs run on any IBM-compatible computer, and the resulting test data are stored in ASCII format. As an example of the use of this procedure, reaction time with five regular and irregular preparatory intervals (PIs), and time estimation of 10 s with and without feedback was measured on normal adolescents and adults. For short PIs the adolescents had reaction times (RTs) similar to adults, but significant longer RTs than adults for long PIs. In the case of time estimation no differences between the two groups were observed; however, both groups underestimated time when no feedback was provided; that is, they thought that less time had elapsed than really had.