The Effects Of Paradigms And Methods On Duration Estimation

Duration timing is the most researched aspect of psychological time, probably because it is of great significance for human beings to survive and to adapt to environments. Duration estimation is influenced by many factors. According to most researchers, experimental paradigms and methods are two of most important ones. Different cognitive processes and reaction modes may underlie different experimental paradims. When adopting different methods, variables manipulated may be different. At present, there are some literatures about experimental paradigms and methods, but few of them have explored these two kinds of effects together. Under prospective and retrospective paradigms, by dual-task, the present research systematically investigated the effects of paradigms and methods on duration estimation. The whole research consists of two experiments, in which the length of target interval and the complexity of nontemporal tasks were manipulated.According to results obtained under present experimental conditions, the following conclusions can be made:(1) Sinificant paradigm effects exist under 12s and 22s conditions, with prospective judgments longer and more accurate than retrospective judgments. But under 68s condition, no significant paradigm effects were found.(2) Robust length effects were documented. The ration scores of duration judgments were of extremely significant differences between 12s and 68s and of significant differences between 22s and 68s, but there was no significant difference between 12s and 22s. Different processing mechanisms may underlie different interval.