On symbolic temporal information: Beliefs about the experience of duration

Judgments on the subjective duration of simple and complex imagined situations are studied. Four facets, concerning the evaluation of the situation (pleasant/unpleasant) and the characteristics of its events (many/few, variable/monotonous, difficult/easy), are taken into account. These facets proved significant for duration judgments in previous studies in which subjects were exposed to situations varying with respect to one of them. In this paper, we study whether these time-perception facets have comparable effects on the symbolic temporal basis of duration judgments. that is, whether they allow one to account for differences in the beliefs about duration experience in imagined situations. Two approaches were chosen: (1) Three groups of subjects compared the durations of all possible pairs of situations characterized by facet elments x and y. The confusion probabilities could be scaled in one dimension for all groups. The facet elements defined intervals that were hierarchically nested. (2)The facets allowed us to distinguish 24 structuples. For each of them, a concrete situation was described in writing. Seventy-six subjects rated the subjective durations of the situations. The structuples led to a partial order that corresponded well to the duration ratings. Moreover, three of the facets showed significant main effects, and the fourth interacted significantly with two others. Finally, the facets were useful in explaining the similarity structure of the duration ratings.