Timing in multitasking: Memory contamination and time pressure bias

There can be systematic biases in time estimation when it is performed in complex multitasking situations. In this paper we focus on the mechanisms that cause participants to tend to respond too quickly and underestimate a target interval (250-400 ms) in a complex, real-time task. We hypothesized that two factors are responsible for the too-early bias: (1) Memory contamination from an even shorter time interval in the task, and (2) time pressure to take appropriate actions in time. In a simpler experiment that was focused on just these two factors, we found a strong too-early bias when participants estimated the target interval in alternation with a shorter interval and when they had little time to perform the task. The too-early bias was absent when they estimated the target interval in isolation without contamination and time pressure. A strong too-late bias occurred when the target interval alternated with a longer interval and there was no time pressure to respond. The effects were captured by incorporating the timing model of Taatgen and van Rijn (2011) into the ACT-R model for the Space Fortress task (Bothell, 2010). The results show that to properly understand time estimation in a dynamic task one needs to model the multiple influences that are occurring from the surrounding context.

[1]  G. Robert J. Hockey,et al.  State, Stress, and Time Pressure , 1993 .

[2]  Stephen M. Highstein,et al.  The cerebellum : recent developments in cerebellar research , 2002 .

[3]  C. Gallistel,et al.  Time, rate, and conditioning. , 2000, Psychological review.

[4]  John R Anderson,et al.  An integrated theory of the mind. , 2004, Psychological review.

[5]  R. Block,et al.  An Attentional · Gate Model of Prospective Time Estimation , 2022 .

[6]  Dan Zakay,et al.  The evasive art of subjective time measurement: Some methodological dilemmas. , 1990 .

[7]  Warren H. Meck,et al.  New Perspectives on Vierordt's Law: Memory-Mixing in Ordinal Temporal Comparison Tasks , 2010, COST TD0904 International Workshop.

[8]  Scott W. Brown.  Attentional resources in timing: Interference effects in concurrent temporal and nontemporal working memory tasks , 1997, Perception & psychophysics.

[9]  M. Boltz,et al.  The role of learning in remembered duration , 1998, Memory & cognition.

[10]  Ralph Barnes,et al.  Expectancy, Attention, and Time , 2000, Cognitive Psychology.

[11]  Gordon D. A. Brown,et al.  Identification and bisection of temporal durations and tone frequencies: common models for temporal and nontemporal stimuli. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[12]  A. Newell.  Unified Theories of Cognition , 1990 .

[13]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Attention and Effort , 1973 .

[14]  J H Wearden,et al.  Speeding up an internal clock in humans? Effects of click trains on subjective duration. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[15]  R. Block,et al.  Prospective and retrospective duration judgments: A meta-analytic review , 1997, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[16]  W. Meck,et al.  Neuropsychological mechanisms of interval timing behavior. , 2000, BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology.

[17]  Raj M. Ratwani,et al.  Integrating vision and audition within a cognitive architecture to track conversations , 2008, 2008 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[18]  Marc Destefano,et al.  The mechanics of multitasking: the choreography of perception, action, and cognition over 7.05 orders of magnitude , 2010 .

[19]  J. Wearden,et al.  Double standards: Memory loading in temporal reference memory , 2004, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. B, Comparative and physiological psychology.

[20]  M. Manosevitz.  High-Speed Scanning in Human Memory , .

[21]  Emanuel Donchin,et al.  The training of complex task performance , 1989 .

[22]  S. W. Brown,et al.  Multiple timing and the allocation of attention. , 1990, Acta psychologica.

[23]  Melissa Bateson,et al.  Interval Timing and Optimal Foraging , 2003 .

[24]  Warren H. Meck,et al.  Symmetrical and asymmetrical sources of variance in temporal generalization , 1991 .

[25]  B Burle,et al.  Dissociation between activation and attention effects in time estimation: implications for internal clock models. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[26]  R M Church,et al.  Scalar Timing in Memory , 1984, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[27]  B McElree,et al.  Working memory and focal attention. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[28]  D. Gopher,et al.  Transfer of Skill from a Computer Game Trainer to Flight , 1994 .

[29]  G. Logan.  Toward an instance theory of automatization. , 1988 .

[30]  D. Gopher,et al.  Practice under changing priorities: An approach to the training of complex skills☆ , 1989 .

[31]  D. Nitzan,et al.  The influence of task difficulty and external tempo on subjective time estimation , 1983, Perception & psychophysics.

[32]  Helga Lejeune,et al.  Vierordt's The Experimental Study of the Time Sense (1868) and its legacy , 2009 .

[33]  D E Kieras,et al.  A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 1. Basic mechanisms. , 1997, Psychological review.

[34]  Esa M. Rantanen,et al.  Timing of Discrete Actions: Evidence for Perceptual Dominance in Human Performance , 2003 .

[35]  N. Taatgen,et al.  Timing of multiple overlapping intervals: how many clocks do we have? , 2008, Acta psychologica.

[36]  R. Block,et al.  Prospective and retrospective duration judgments: an executive-control perspective. , 2004, Acta neurobiologiae experimentalis.

[37]  S. W. Brown,et al.  Time perception and attention: The effects of prospective versus retrospective paradigms and task demands on perceived duration , 1985, Perception & psychophysics.

[38]  John Anderson,et al.  An integrated theory of prospective time interval estimation: the role of cognition, attention, and learning. , 2007, Psychological review.

[39]  Barbara Y. White,et al.  An approach to training based upon principled task decomposition , 1989 .

[40]  J. Devin McAuley,et al.  Time judgments in global temporal contexts , 2005, Perception & psychophysics.

[41]  Richard A. Block,et al.  Chapter 9 Experiencing and Remembering Time: Affordances, Context, and Cognition , 1989 .

[42]  Gordon D A Brown,et al.  A timing-specific memory distortion effect in young children. , 2004, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[43]  Niels Taatgen,et al.  Traces of times past: Representations of temporal intervals in memory , 2011, Memory & cognition.

[44]  H. Zelaznik,et al.  The Cerebellum and Event Timing , 2002, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[45]  R. Rousseau,et al.  Erratum to: Time estimation and concurrent nontemporal processing: Specific interference from short-term-memory demands , 1993 .

[46]  Annett Schirmer,et al.  Timing speech: a review of lesion and neuroimaging findings. , 2004, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[47]  Dario D. Salvucci,et al.  Piano Playing : A Model of Sight-Reading and Rhythmic Timing , 2006 .

[48]  D. Gatzia,et al.  Time and Time Perception , 2015 .

[49]  Simon Grondin,et al.  Overloading temporal memory. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[50]  Esa M. Rantanen,et al.  Measurement of Taskload and Performance in a Dynamic Multi-Task Experiment , 2004 .

[51]  W. Meck.  Functional and neural mechanisms of interval timing , 2003 .

[52]  Michael N. Shadlen,et al.  Temporal context calibrates interval timing , 2010, Nature Neuroscience.

[53]  John R. Anderson,et al.  Brain Regions Engaged by Part- and Whole-task Performance in a Video Game: A Model-based Test of the Decomposition Hypothesis , 2011, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[54]  M. Boltz,et al.  The processing of temporal and nontemporal information in the remembering of event durations and musical structure. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[55]  Dan Zakay,et al.  The Impact of Time Perception Processes on Decision Making under Time Stress , 1993 .

[56]  Michael K. Martin,et al.  Instance-Based Decision Making Model of Repeated Binary Choice , 2007 .

[57]  Niels Taatgen,et al.  Learning when to switch tasks in a dynamic multitasking environment , 2006 .

[58]  Michel Isingrini,et al.  Age-related changes in duration reproduction: Involvement of working memory processes , 2006, Brain and Cognition.

[59]  John A. Michon,et al.  Timing in temporal tracking , 1967 .

[60]  E. Donchin.  The learning strategies project: Introductory remarks☆ , 1989 .

[61]  Esa M. Rantanen,et al.  Human Performance in Timing of Discrete Actions , 2001 .

[62]  Eysenck Keane.  Cognitive Psychology, 6 , 2012 .

[63]  J. Gibbon,et al.  Scalar expectancy theory and peak-interval timing in humans. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes.

[64]  David E. Kieras,et al.  A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 2. Accounts of psychological refractory-period phenomena. , 1997 .