Does time fly when you're counting down? The effect of counting direction on subjective time judgment

We show that counting downward while performing a task shortens the perceived duration of the task compared to counting upward. People perceive that less time has elapsed when they were counting downward versus upward while using a product (Studies 1 and 3) or watching geometrical shapes (Study 2). The counting direction effect is obtained using both prospective and retrospective time judgments (Study 3), but only when the count range begins with the number “1” (Study 2). Furthermore, the counting direction affects peoples' attitude toward the product, their likelihood of using it again, and their purchase intentions. We test several plausible accounts for the counting direction effect, including task difficulty, numerical anchoring, and arousal. We find preliminary evidence that downward counting feels shorter because it is more arousing than upward counting.     

The influence of chronically and temporarily accessible information on life satisfaction judgments

The authors examined the influence of temporarily and chronically accessible information on life satisfaction judgments. Meta-analyses revealed high retest-reliability of life satisfaction judgments and weak effects of the item order of domain and global satisfaction judgments. Study 1 (N=225) failed to replicate a widely cited finding of strong item-order effects. In Studies 2 (N=100), 3 (N=200), and 4 (N=222), chronically accessible information was a strong predictor of life satisfaction judgments, whereas item order had a relatively small effect. Study 5 (N=651) demonstrated that the results generalize to single item measures and judgments of shorter time periods. The results suggest that life satisfaction judgments are more heavily based on chronically accessible than temporarily accessible information.     

Attention allocation policy influences prospective timing

The role of attention allocation policy control in prospective duration judgments was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, it was demonstrated that prospective duration judgments of same clock durations are longer when timing is treated as a primary task than when it is treated as a secondary task, regardless of the difficulty of the nontemporal task filling the to-be-judged interval. In the second experiment, this finding was replicated. Additionally, it was demonstrated that when prospective timing is not preassigned a specific priority, duration judgments are longer than those obtained under secondary-task conditions, but shorter than those obtained under primary-task conditions. It was also revealed that when attention is distracted from timing, prospective duration judgments become shorter than when attention is not distracted. These findings support the notion that prospective timing creates a dual-task condition in which magnitude of duration judgments reflects the amount of attentional resources allocated for temporal information processing.     

Preferences and inferences in encoding visual objects: a systematic comparison of semantic and affective priming

The authors systematically compared semantic and affective priming in five studies involving words and pictures. In Studies 1 (lexical decision task) and 2 (evaluation task), irrelevant short duration (200 ms) primes were briefly flashed before relevant targets. The authors orthogonally varied both the semantic and affective relations between primes and targets. In both studies, semantic priming but not affective priming was found. Study 3 revealed that the same stimuli can produce affective priming, but only when words come from a single semantic category. Studies 4 and 5 used pictures rather than words to examine automatic encoding tendencies. The results conceptually replicated those from Studies 1 and 2. In sum, the findings suggest that affective priming may be a relatively fragile phenomenon, particularly when the semantic properties of objects vary in a salient manner.     

Gender differences in judgments of multiple emotions from facial expressions

The authors tested gender differences in emotion judgments by utilizing a new judgment task (Studies 1 and 2) and presenting stimuli at the edge of conscious awareness (Study 2). Women were more accurate than men even under conditions of minimal stimulus information. Women's ratings were more variable across scales, and they rated correct target emotions higher than did men.     

Thinking about product attributes: Investigating the role of unconscious valence processing in attribute framing

In the present investigation we conducted three studies to examine how unconscious valence processing influences participants' quality judgments in an attribute-framing task. In Studies 1 and 2 we observed how individuals who had depleted cognitive resources, through distraction (Study 2) and time constraint (Study 3), differed in their responses to an attribute-framing task. In Study 3 we subliminally primed participants with attribute frames and then presented them with a frameless decision task. Our results revealed that attribute framing arises from unconscious valence processing and conscious processing may only play a role when the frame is especially salient.     

Time perception and attention: The effects of prospective versus retrospective paradigms and task demands on perceived duration

This research was designed to compare time judgments obtained under prospective conditions (in which subjects are instructed to attend to time) and retrospective conditions (in which subjects are unaware that they will be required to judge time). In Experiment 1, subjects prospectively or retrospectively judged the duration of intervals spent performing a perceptual-motor task at different levels of difficulty. The results showed that subjects tested under both research paradigms tended to give increasingly shorter and/or more inaccurate time judgments with increases in nontemporal task demands. Experiment 2 was designed to test the effects of attentional deployment on perceived time by comparing prospective and retrospective judgments under control, selective attention, and divided attention conditions. Both types of time judgments became increasingly inaccurate as attention was more broadly deployed. The results of these experiments are consistent with an attentional allocation model, and they suggest that nontemporal task demands disrupt or interfere with timing in both prospective and retrospective situations.     

The effects of interference and retention delay on temporal generalization performance

This study investigated the effect of forgetting of the standard duration on temporal discrimination in a generalization task. In two experiments, participants were given a temporal generalization task with or without a retention delay between the learning of the standard duration and the testing of the comparison durations. During this delay, they either performed or did not perform an interference task. Results failed to reveal any effect of 15-min and 24-h retention delays on time judgments (Experiment 1). However, when an interference task was performed during the 15-min delay (Experiment 2), there was a subjective shortening effect, indicating that the standard duration was judged shorter with than without an interference task. These findings suggest that when an interference task occurs immediately after initial temporal encoding, it affects the process of consolidation in reference memory.     

Conceptual Knowledge,Procedural Knowledge,and Metacognition in Routine and Nonroutine Problem Solving

When, how, and why students use conceptual knowledge during math problem solving is not well understood. We propose that when solving routine problems, students are more likely to recruit conceptual knowledge if their procedural knowledge is weak than if it is strong, and that in this context, metacognitive processes, specifically feelings of doubt, mediate interactions between procedural and conceptual knowledge. To test these hypotheses, in two studies (Ns = 64 and 138), university students solved fraction and decimal arithmetic problems while thinking aloud; verbal protocols and written work were coded for overt uses of conceptual knowledge and displays of doubt. Consistent with the hypotheses, use of conceptual knowledge during calculation was not significantly positively associated with accuracy, but was positively associated with displays of doubt, which were negatively associated with accuracy. In Study 1, participants also explained solutions to rational arithmetic problems; using conceptual knowledge in this context was positively correlated with calculation accuracy, but only among participants who did not use conceptual knowledge during calculation, suggesting that the correlation did not reflect “online” effects of using conceptual knowledge. In Study 2, participants also completed a nonroutine problem-solving task; displays of doubt on this task were positively associated with accuracy, suggesting that metacognitive processes play different roles when solving routine and nonroutine problems. We discuss implications of the results regarding interactions between procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and metacognitive processes in math problem solving.     

The effect of construal level on predictions of task duration

Construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) contends that distance to events leads to higher level processing. In a series of studies, we examined the role of construal level in prediction of the time needed to perform a task. Estimates increased when the tasks were distant rather than close in time (Study 1), were hypothetical rather than real (Study 2), and when participants were primed to adopt an abstract rather than a concrete mindset (Study 3). As a possible explanation, it is suggested that time units are perceived as smaller as people move up in abstraction, so that more time units are needed to cover the same amount of work. In line with this, we found that people who were primed to adopt a higher level processing mode visualized an hour as shorter than those in a lower level mode, as indicated by their distance marks on a time-line (Study 4). Finally, the contraction of time units was shown to mediate the relationship between temporal distance and task duration estimates (Study 5).     

Looking back in time: self-concept change affects visual perspective in autobiographical memory

People who change often report that their old selves seem like "different people." Correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Studies 2 and 3) studies showed that participants tended to use a 3rd-person observer perspective when visualizing memories of actions that conflicted with their current self-concept. A similar pattern emerged when participants imagined performing actions that varied in self-concept compatibility (Study 4). The authors conclude that on-line judgments of an action's self-concept compatibility affect the perspective used for image construction. Study 5 shows applied implications. Use of the 3rd-person perspective when recalling past episodes of overindulgent eating was related to optimism about behaving differently at an upcoming Thanksgiving dinner. The authors discuss the effect of self-concept compatibility on cognitive and emotional reactions to past actions and consider the role of causal attributions in defining the self across time.     

Effects of attention manipulation on judgments of duration and of intensity in the visual modality

The “attentional model” of time estimation assumes that temporal judgments depend on the amount of attention allocated to the temporal processor (the timer). One of the main predictions of this model is that an interval will be judged shorter when attention is not allocated to the temporal parameters of the task. Previous studies combining temporal and nontemporal tasks (dual-task method) have suggested that the time spent processing the target duration might be a key factor: The less time devoted by the subject to the temporal task, the shorter the judged duration. In the two experiments presented here, subjects were asked to judge both the duration of a visual stimulus and an increment in intensity occurring at any time during this stimulus. In the second experiment, trials without intensity increments were added. The main result is that the judged duration was shorter when the increment occurred later in the stimulus or did not occur. In those cases, subjects had been expecting increment occurrence during most part of the stimulus and thus had focused for a shorter time on stimulus duration. We propose that attention shifts related to expectancy and to detection of the increment reduce subjective duration.     

Task predictability and remembered duration

The effects of structural predictability on remembered duration judgments were examined within the context of the performance of a series of highly familiar tasks. Across a set of three experiments, task predictability was manipulated by the presence or absence of advance expectancies of what tasks were to be performed (Experiment 1), an (in)variant ordering of task performance (Experiment 2), and the placement of interruptions at between- versus within-task locations (Experiment 3). In each case, a higher degree of predictability led to more accurate and reliable duration estimates that were relatively free of bias, while uncertainty decreased accuracy through an overestimation bias. These results not only render insight into the mediational mechanisms responsible for temporal judgments, but also sug-gest some practical applications for everyday behavior.     

Relative and absolute duration judgments under prospective and retrospective paradigms

A dual-process contingency model of short duration judgment is proposed and tested. The first process, or P(t), is a timer that uses cognitive capacity to keep track of units of time. If capacity is directed toward other tasks, P(t) will record fewer units and produce lower time judgments than when capacity is not directed toward other tasks. This timing process is most likely to affect performance when people know in advance (prospective judgments) that time judgments will be required and when absolute, rather than relative, judgments are made. The second process, or P(m), which is used for retrospective and relative judgments, judges duration on the basis of the number of remembered high priority events (HPEs) occurring during the interval. When this process is used, time judgments increase with the amount of HPEs that can be retrieved at the moment of judgment. Two experiments are reported. Tactual stimuli were presented, and nontemporal information processing load (simple or complex stimuli), type of judgment (absolute or relative), and judgment paradigm (prospective or retrospective)were manipulated. The results obtained support the proposed dual-process contingency model.     

Distraction shrinks space

Research investigating how people remember the distance of paths they walk has shown two apparently conflicting effects of experience during encoding on subsequent distance judgments. By the feature accumulation effect, discrete path features such as turns, houses, or other landmarks cause an increase in remembered distance. By the distractor effect, performance of a concurrent task during path encoding causes a decrease in remembered distance. In this study, we ask the following: What are the conditions that determine whether the feature accumulation or the distractor effect dominates distortions of space? In two experiments, blindfolded participants were guided along two legs of a right triangle while reciting nonsense syllables. On some trials, one of the two legs contained features: horizontally mounted car antennas (gates) that bent out of the way as participants walked past. At the end of the second leg, participants either indicated the remembered path leg lengths using their hands in a ratio estimation task or attempted to walk, unguided, straight back to the beginning. In addition to response mode, visual access to the paths and time between encoding and response were manipulated to determine whether these factors would affect feature accumulation or distractor effects. Path legs with added features were remembered as shorter than those without, but this result was significant only in the haptic response mode data. This finding suggests that when people form spatial memory representations with the intention of navigating in room-scale spaces, interfering with information accumulation substantially distorts spatial memory.     

Emotion judgments do not differ as a function of perceived nationality

This article reports three studies concerning the relationship between emotion judgments and perceived nationality of the expressors being judged. Study 1 demonstrated that observers do not reliably make implicit assumptions about the nationalities of the expressors in judgment tasks. Study 2 examined judgments of Americans and Japanese observers who were told that Caucasian and Asian expressors were Americans and Japanese, respectively, and who made fixed‐choice judgments and intensity ratings. Study 3 examined judgments of Americans given similar instructions and who used a multiscalar rating task. Neither Studies 2 nor 3 provided evidence that nationality information affected judgments. These findings have implications not only for basic emotion theory, but also for international and intercultural communication training.     

When group members admit to being conformist: the role of relative intragroup status in conformity self-reports

Five studies examined the hypothesis that people will strategically portray the self as being more group influenced the more junior they feel within the group. Among social psychologists (Study 1), ratings of self-conformity by group members were greater when the status of the participant was low than when it was high. These effects were replicated in Studies 2, 3, and 4 in which relative intragroup status was manipulated. In Study 3, the authors found junior group members described themselves as more conformist than senior members when they were addressing an ingroup audience, but when they were addressing an outgroup audience the effect disappeared. Furthermore, junior members (but not senior members) rated themselves as more conformist when they were led to believe their responses were public than when responses were private (Study 5). The discussion focuses on the strategic processes underlying low-status group members' self-reports of group influence and the functional role of conformity in groups.     

Culpable control and counterfactual reasoning in the psychology of blame

Many counterfactual reasoning studies assess how people ascribe blame for harmful actions. By itself, the knowledge that a harmful outcome could easily have been avoided does not predict blame. In three studies, the authors showed that an outcome's mutability influences blame and related judgments when it is coupled with a basis for negative evaluations. Study 1 showed that mutability influenced blame and compensation judgments when a physician was negligent but not when the physician took reasonable precautions to prevent harm. Study 2 showed that this finding was attenuated when the victim contributed to his own demise. In Study 3, whether an actor just missed arriving on time to see his dying mother or had no chance to see her influenced his blameworthiness when his reason for being late provided a basis for negative evaluations but made no difference when there was a positive reason for the delay. These findings clarify the conditions under which an outcome's mutability is likely to influence blame and related attributions.     

Chronic and temporary distinct expectancies as comparison standards: automatic contrast in dispositional judgments

In 4 studies, the authors examined whether making outcome expectancies distinct resulted in their use as comparison standards and, consequently, in contrastive dispositional inferences for a target's behaviors. The expectancies examined were based on either chronic future-event expectancies (Study 1) or temporary, manipulated expectancy standards (Studies 2-4). Analyses revealed that when contextual expectancies were distinct or separable from target information, participants' dispositional judgments were contrasted from them under cognitive load and overcorrected (assimilated to them) under no load. These effects were mediated by participants' behavior categorizations. Evidence suggestive of a proceduralized form of correction for task difficulty and an effortful awareness-based correction for the effects of expectancies also were found. Results are examined in light of recent models of the dispositional inference process.     

So far away from one's partner, yet so close to romantic alternatives: avoidant attachment, interest in alternatives, and infidelity

Temptation pervades modern social life, including the temptation to engage in infidelity. The present investigation examines one factor that may put individuals at a greater risk of being unfaithful to their partner: dispositional avoidant attachment style. The authors hypothesize that avoidantly attached people may be less resistant to temptations for infidelity due to lower levels of commitment in romantic relationships. This hypothesis was confirmed in 8 studies. People with high, vs. low, levels of dispositional avoidant attachment had more permissive attitudes toward infidelity (Study 1), showed attentional bias toward attractive alternative partners (Study 2), expressed greater daily interest in meeting alternatives to their current relationship partner (Study 5), perceived alternatives to their current relationship partner more positively (Study 6), and engaged in more infidelity over time (Studies 3, 4, 7, and 8). This effect was mediated by lower levels of commitment (Studies 5-8). Thus, avoidant attachment predicted a broad spectrum of responses indicative of interest in alternatives and propensity to engage in infidelity, which were mediated by low levels of commitment.