Chapter 8 Judging the Duration of Time Intervals: A Process of Remembering Segments of Experience

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses three models of duration judgment. It also compares models in terms of their ability to predict the results of experiments which helps in investigating the effects of interval content on duration judgment. All three models are cognitive (versus biological) explanations, because mechanisms of attention, memory, and information processing play an important role in their logic. Ornstein suggested with his “storage-size” hypothesis that the perceived duration of an interval is based on the contents of memory associated with the judged interval. Ornstein proposed two specific factors that can influence the “size” of memory stores—namely, (1) the amount of information presented during an interval and (2) the complexity of that information. The storage-size model (SS) applies to the estimation of relatively long durations (i.e., a minute or so). One of the key assumptions of the processing-time (PT) model is that duration judgments are based on the output of two processors (a timer and a stimulus processor). Both processors influence duration judgment, but their individual contributions are determined by the share of attention allocated to each during the interval.

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