The start-stop procedure: estimation of temporal intervals by human subjects

In four experiments investigating human timing, subjects produced estimates of sample durations by bracketing their endpoints. On each trial, subjects reproduced a sample duration by pressing a button before the estimated sample duration elapsed (start time) and releasing it after the estimated duration elapsed (stop time). From these responses, middle time (start + stop/2) and spread time (stop - start) were calculated, representing the point of subjective equality and the difference limen, respectively. In all experiments, subjects produced middle times that varied directly with sample duration. In Experiment 2, middle times lengthened when feedback was withheld. Consistent with Weber timing, spread times, as well as the standard deviation of middle times, varied directly with middle time (Experiments 1, 3, and 4). On the basis of an internal clock model of timing (Gibbon & Church, 1990), the data permitted inferences regarding memory processes and response threshold. Correlations between start and stop times and between start and spread times agreed with earlier findings in animals suggesting that the variance of temporal estimates across trials is based in part upon the selection of a single temporal memory sample from a reference memory store and upon one or two threshold samples for initiating and terminating each estimate within a trial.