The role of cognitive changes in immediate and remote prospective time estimations

&izig __ __ iFiB ELSEVIER Acta Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121

acta psychologica

The role of cognitive changes in immediate and remote prospective time estimations

Belh Bueno Martinez

Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de Salamanca, Avda. de la Merced 109 - 131, 37005 Salamanca, Spain

(Accepted February 1993)

Abstract

The present research examines the predictive value of memory storage-size, cognitive change and attentional models with the aim of discovering which of them best explains the human experience of duration under conditions of intentional attention to time and under immediate and remote time estimation conditions. An independent measurement was also made of the processing effort invested in experimental task performance. A completely randomized 3 x 2 X 2 between-subject factorial design was applied to 192 students of psychology at the University of Salamanca. The results, obtained by means of ANOVA methods and orthogonal contrasts between means, showed (1) that changes in the cognitive context operate as the main determinants for making judgments of time, and (2) that the distinction between immediate and remote prospective time estimation is crucial because it causes a shortening or lengthening of duration judgments by human beings. The significance of the results for time estimation models is discussed.

1. Introduction

in

One characteristic that distinguishes psychological time from physical time lies that, depending on various conditions, psychological time can ‘lengthen’ or

‘shorten’. In the last two decades much research work has been carried out to clarify the possible participation of different factors in the estimation of subjective duration. On the one hand, the function carried out by stimulus information has been studied by means of the assumption originally defended by Ornstein (1969) to the effect that the duration remembered about a time interval depends directly on the amount of codified and recoverable stimulus information; that is, of the size of what is stored in memory. Although strong empirical support has been given to it

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100 B. Bumo Martinez /Actu Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121

(Block, 1974, 1978, Exp. 1; Bobko et al., 1977; Kowal, 1976, 1987; Poynter, 1979; Thomas and Weaver, 197.51, this model, with deep mechanistic roots, has also met with strong negative evidence (Block, 1978, Exp. 2; Cantor and Thomas, 1977; MO, 1975; Poynter and Homa, 1983; Schiffman and Bobko, 1977). This has led to the formulation of alternative models that better explain the human experience of duration.

Other investigators have underlined the importance of contextual variables by stressing the relevance of cognitive changes in duration judgments expressed about a time period. Thus, Block and Reed (1978) found that intervals in which a task with changes in the verbal material processing mode was performed were remembered as being of greater duration than those intervals of the same physical duration in which the subjects made a single type of processing, either structural or semantic (in the sense of Craik and Tulving, 1975). Furthermore, this result was obtained by rejecting the plausibility of the storage-size model because the greater retention of verbal material corresponded to the condition occupied only by semantic processing.

Results obtained in later works (Block, 1982, 1985, 1986; Poynter, 1983; Poynter and Homa, 1983) have excluded a contextual explanation in terms of the codification of varying ambiental associations, such that these authors hold that global changes in the context of process are the critical factor determining the recalled duration of a time period.

Whereas the two previous models were proposed mainly to explain estimations made under conditions of incidental attention to time, that is, by means of a retrospective paradigm, the model that best explains the results obtained in situations of intentional attention to time - the prospective paradigm - is the attentional model (Hicks et al., 1976; Thomas and Weaver, 1975). Assuming that attentional resources are distributed between the temporal and non-temporal aspects of a task, this model postulates that the subjective estimation of duration is a direct function of the amount of attention directed to the passage of time, postulating an inverse relation between the estimation of duration and the attentional effort invested in the non-temporal task (Brown, 1985; Bueno, 1992; Mc- Clain, 1983; Zakay, 1989; Zakay et al., 1983) and a direct relation between the estimation of duration and the boredom produced by the task (e.g., Hawkins and Tedford, 1976).

The main criticism of studies that have investigated the role of attentional variables on psychological duration is the lack of an independent criterion for measuring the cognitive effort. This variable has supposedly been controlled by manipulations of task difficulty or of the processing level required during the interval, without considering whether such manipulations do indeed control cognitive effort (Mitchell and Hunt, 1989). The relationship between task difficulty and cognitive effort becomes a non-trivial problem (Britton et al., 1978; Ellis et al., 1984; Hunt, 1983). Cognitive effort cannot be inferred directly from preestablished task difficulty. Studies of duration as a function of task difficulty have little to say about the relationship between cognitive effort and time estimation because they do not consider any independent index for measuring cognitive effort.

B. Buena Martinez /Acta Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121 101

Regarding the relationship between cognitive effort and processing levels (Craik and Lockhart, 1972; Craik and Tulving, 1975), authors such as Britton et al. (19791, Krinsky and Nelson (19811, Tyler et al. (1979) have found that cognitive effort does not necessarily differ as a function of structural-semantic task manipulation. Variables known to affect memory, with widely accepted interpretations of their effects, do not consistently influence the indices of cognitive effort. Thus, theoreti- cal processes presumed to be directly related to retention appear to have no necessary relationship with cognitive effort; as a result of this, when these processes are modified the resulting manipulation of the latter cannot be inferred.

From the above, one can speculate that at present the memory of an event cannot be used to investigate the occurrence of psychological processes in attention. The question of how much attentional capacity is demanded by processes indexed in a task can be answered by use of an independent index to evaluate the cognitive demands of the task (Wickens, 1984).

According to the literature reviewed, it would appear that the contextual change model best predicts the empirical results obtained in studies in which attempts have been made to confront the prototypical variables of each of the three main models. However, this comparison has been carried out without measuring cognitive effort directly. The contextual model, in particular, has almost exclusively been tested under retrospective conditions. In this study, therefore, an attempt is made to test the role of cognitive changes under conditions of prospective judgment with a clear manipulation of the alternating variables and an independent measurement of the processing effort invested in experimental tasks.

We have also attempted to deal with another methodological problem involved in research into human time estimation. Prospective and retrospective estimations have been confused with immediate and remote estimation without realizing that they are qualitatively different distinctions. The time that passes between the end of a time interval whose duration is to be estimated and the moment in which subjective judgment begins may originate two types of estimation. These are immediate estimation (IE), in which the duration of the interval is estimated immediately after its ending, and remote estimation (RE), in which duration of the interval is estimated after a given period of time (Zakay and Fallach, 1984). This is a methodological factor corresponding to a procedural differentiation that is not equivalent to the distinction between the prospective and retrospective paradigms.

The confusion here lies in that, in general, the prospective paradigm is identi- fied with IE and the retrospective paradigm with RE without realizing that both IE and RE can occur in the prospective paradigm, unlike the retrospective situation in which a time period between the end of a critical interval and the beginning of time estimation must inevitably elapse for instructions to be given about duration judgment. In this sense, we agree with Zakay and Fallach (1984) who argue in favor of the need to investigate the difference between IE and RE in time estimation studies for several reasons: (a) to clarify the existing confusion between IE and RE with prospective and retrospective time estimation; (b) to specify a condition which should always be taken into account in time estimation studies; and (c) to achieve a better understanding of the general mechanism of time estimation.

102 B. Bueno Martinez /Acta Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121

If one assumes that the accessibility of the temporal information accumulated in the cognitive timer during an interval decreases as a function of the time elapsing from the termination of that interval, the relevancy of that information for estimating the duration of a specific interval will also decrease. The retention interval is thus a variable that can allow the information to persist in the timer - probably subject to some decay processes similar to those characterizing working memory (Allan and Rousseau, 1976). Furthermore, during any interval some information is retained in short-term storage and some of it is transferred later on to long-term storage where, although it might be further changed as a function of elapsing time, it nevertheless remains accessible (Zakay and Fallach, 19841.

The evidence obtained from the still scarce manipulation of this procedural variable shows that IE and RE are not compared when a prospective paradigm is used and that differences between the IE and RE paradigms cannot be explained in terms of prospective and retrospective paradigms. Additionally, a decrease has been reported in judgment accuracy that seems to be proportional to the elapsed physical time between the end of the critical interval and the time response task (Schab and Crowder, 1989). This imprecision resembles the judgment compression found in other areas of investigation, such as memorial psychophysics for the visual area (Kemp, 1988). However, more systematic investigation, which should include different processing tasks and retention intervals, is required to test the findings obtained until now (Zakay and Fallach, 1984).

As a result, our second objective consisted of examining the effects of manipulated variables on prospective time estimation carried out with different delays (IE vs. RE); this allowed us to clarify whether that procedural difference actually affects the accuracy with which such judgments are made.

2. Experiment

The experiment was designed to test the predictive value of memory storage-size, cognitive change and attentional models with the aim of discovering which of them best explains the human experience of duration under conditions of intentional attention to time and under immediate and remote time estimation conditions. An independent measurement was also made of the processing effort invested in experimental task performance.

In this experiment, subjects were instructed to process words on different levels (some, on a relatively shallow, structural level; others, on a deeper, semantic level; and others performed deep- and shallow-processing tasks in alternation). The cognitive effort was measured by a tone to which subjects had to respond as fast as possible after each word after it appeared.

They were then asked to reproduce the experimental interval duration as they had felt it, to indicate the number of words presented in the interval corresponding to the instruction phrases, to give ratings of the personal interest elicited by the experimental task, and to make judgments of the recognition of the words displayed during the time interval. The various memory judgments were used to

B. Bueno Martinez /Acta Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121 103

assess the influence of processing level on memory, while the ratings of interest were used to rule out alternative explanations for the findings in terms of boredom or similar affective factors (see Hawkings and Tedford, 1976; Underwood, 1975).

Systematically, the hypotheses that we intented to test were: (a) in relation to duration judgment (1) all reproductions would be underestimations with regard to physical time; (2) the accuracy of the duration estimation of a time interval using a prospective

paradigm would be an inverse function of the size of the retention interval relative to the time judgment;

(3) this duration judgment would be more imprecise in conditions in which a tone appears to which the subject must respond than under conditions in which the tone does not appear;

(4) subjective duration would be a function of psychological changes produced in a time interval;

(5) subjective duration would be an inverse function of the amount of processing effort demanded by the non-temporal task.

(b) With respect to the dependent variables introduced to test models other than the one postulating cognitive change,

(6) the reaction time (RT) recorded to measure the cognitive effort invested in the performance of each of the task types would be a function of the type of the processing carried out, so that the greatest RT would be expected in response to the tone in the exclusively semantic processing condition, the smallest RT in the only structural processing condition, and an intermediate RT in the condition with changes between both processing modes;

(7) the whole amount of words counted in the complete interval would not be a function of any of the independent variables used;

(8) the interest experienced during task performance in each interval would not be a function of any of the independent variables used;

(9) the amount of correctly recognized words would be a function of the type of processing task introduced, such that the exclusively semantic processing condition should show the greatest word recognition, followed by the condition with changes in the processing type, and the smallest word recognition should occur in the exclusively structural processing condition.

2.1. Method

Subjects One hundred and ninety-two students of psychology from the Faculty of

Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the University of Salamanca participated in this experiment. All of them had normal or corrected-to-normal vision at the time of the test as well as normal hearing.

Design A completely randomized 3 X 2 X 2 between-subjects factorial design with three

treatments and six dependent variables was used.


(a) The independent variables were: (1) processing task type, defined by means of the type of instruction phrases which orientated the subject about words that she/he must count. This could adopt one of three levels: structural processing, in which subjects were asked to attend to the type style in which the words were written and which was assumed to demand relatively little cognitive effort; semantic processing, in which subjects were asked to attend to the semantic category to which the nouns belonged; this task was orientated to demand a high mental effort, and a change between the two aboue processing types. (2) Tone manipulation, with two possible values obtained from the presence or absence of a tone. In the first case, this variable was defined by a tone to which subjects had to respond as fast as possible after the word appeared, counting (or not) the word after which it appeared. In conditions of tone absence, the tone did not appear after any of the words. (3) Retention internal - RI - relative to the time judgment, with two levels: immediate estimation (0 set> and remote estimation (120 set).

(b) The dependent variables were: (1) estimation of the duration of the critical interval, which was defined as the time reproduced by each subject, measured in seconds. (2) Reaction time to the tone which followed words in conditions of tone presence; this variable was defined as the time elapsing from the start of tone display to the start of key pressure response. (3) Judgment of the number of words counted per category, a variable defined by the amount of nouns that the subject counted as corresponding to what was indicated by each orientation phrase; (4) judgment of the whole amount of nouns counted during the interval, a variable defined as the whole amount of nouns counted over the whole interval. (5) Judgment of the personal interest elicited by the experimental task. This variable was defined by the degree of interest caused by the task, measured on an ordinal scale from 1 to 7 points. (6) Judgment of the recognition of the words displayed during the time interval; this was defined as the amount of nouns correctly recognized by each subject.

Fig. 1 shows the major features of the design of the experiment, including both independent and dependent variables.

Materials Visual and auditive stimuli were used. The visually displayed material was

verbal in nature and comprised phrases and words. The auditive material was a weak 1000 Hz tone of approximately 14 dB.

The pool of words consisted of 12 three- to seven-letter nouns from four semantic categories: four-footed animals, parts of the human body, drinks, and weapons. The 12 words from each semantic category were selected from the most frequent responses in the Pascual LLobell and Musitu Ochoa (1980) Categorial Norms, which were inspired from the Battig and Montague (1969) norms, with a series of restrictions: parts of the human body could not belong to the head or limbs; quadruped animals had to be rarely domesticated; only non-alcoholic drinks were chosen, and weapons too large to fit into pockets were selected. Further- more, any obviously polysemic words were avoided.

Eight words from each category were randomly selected and served as stimuli that the subject had to count during the 80 set time interval. Two of the eight


Processing /

task

type

Tone

Retention interval

I Exclusively semantic or

Immediate estimation (1)

remote esylA7ation (2)

(1) (2)

nouns count

interest rating

recognition memory

Fig. 1. Major features of the experimental design. (Between-subjects variables are indicated by the

word or.)

words per category were randomly assigned to be written in each of four types of different writing: upper and lower case characters in bold type and upper and lower case characters in italics. Thus, 32 words were assigned to each 80 set interval, 8 from each semantic category and 8 in each type style. The remaining 4 words in each category appeared only as distractor items on the subsequent recognition test, with one word in each category assigned randomly to each of the four different type styles.

The phrases employed were instruction statements which indicated the attribute of the words following which subjects had to concentrate on. There were four phrases orientating towards a shallow codification (structural processing), presumably demanding little cognitive effort, which indicated the type style in which the written words could appear (for example, BOLD CAPITAL CHARACTER TYPE). There were also four phrases that orientated the subjects towards the realization of a deep codification (semantic processing) and presumably demanded

106 B. Buena Martinez /Acta Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121

considerable cognitive effort to process the words, which referred to the restrictive category to which the nouns belonged (for example: PARTS OF THE HUMAN BODY NOT BELONGING TO THE HEAD OR TO THE LIMBS).

Each interval, whose duration the subject had to reproduce, comprised the following sequence: 1 phrase - 8 words belonging to that category - 1 phrase - 8 words - 1 phrase - 8 words - 1 phrase - 8 words.

Regarding the auditive stimulus employed, under the conditions in which a tone was given, the latter could be delivered with one of four delays relative to each noun after which it appeared. The four tone delays were introduced to prevent a predictable tone sequence by the subject, as reported by Tyler et al. (1979).

Formation of the experimental conditions

(a> For the processing task type variable, the exclusively structural condition comprised each of the phrases indicative of the type style in which the words were written followed by the 8 nouns corresponding to each type style. In each of these conditions each of the phrases of the easy structural type appeared once, so that the four different phrases of the structural type appeared in each interval corresponding to the easy processing condition.

The exclusively semantic processing condition was formed of each of the phrases indicative of the restrictive category to which words belonged, followed by nouns corresponding to each of those categories. In each condition each orientation phrase towards the meaning appeared once, such that the four different semantic orientation phrases appeared in each interval of this condition.

The different intervals of the non-mixed processing conditions only differed in the order in which the orientative phrases appeared and in the order in which the nouns corresponding to each type style or semantic category were shown. In each case, phrase order was randomly chosen from among all those possible and was randomly assigned to each subject passing through the condition. Noun order was also randomly obtained from among the 8 nouns corresponding to each type style or category and was randomly assigned to each person subject to the condition.

The mixed processing condition was always composed of two orientative phrases towards a structural processing supposedly demanding little mental effort and two phrases designed to make the subject begin a noun semantic processing, with strong demands on cognitive effort. The two phrases of each orientation type were different within each interval. Thus, the same phrase could only appear once within each interval.

Each interval could appear either with an easy structural orientation phrase or with one involving a difficult semantic orientation. All possible orders were formed and an order was randomly selected for each subject. After each phrase type, the 8 nouns corresponding to each phrase appeared randomly for each subject.

For all conditions, each phrase was displayed in the center of a Macintosh ED computer screen, written in normal capital characters, New York 14 type, and remained on the screen for an average of 2 sec.

(b) In the case of the tone manipulation variable, there were 6 conditions in which a tone could appear and 6 conditions in which no tone appeared. If there


was a tone, it was heard by the subject through his/her left ear through head- phones connected to the computer. This tone could appear at 240 msec, 480 msec, or 720 msec after the beginning of each noun, or otherwise did not appear after that word. Since in each 80 set interval a total of 32 words appeared, each tone delay accompanied 8 words in a counterbalanced sequence. In each phrase type, each delay type appeared after two words. In the situation of tone absence, the tone could not appear after any of the nouns during the interval.

(c) The conditions of immediate estimation assumed that the time reproduction judgment would begin immediately after the end of the critical time period. Under the remote estimation conditions, 120 seconds elapsed until the reproduction of duration started.

Procedure Subjects entered the experimental room in small groups, generally between 3

and 6 subjects for each group. Sporadically, and for practical demands, the test was applied individually or with only two subjects.

The instructions concerning the task which the subjects had to perform during the phase of stimulus exposure during the experimental interval were read silently by each subject, who could request explanations when required. After the subjects had finished the silent reading, the experimenter gave a detailed explanation of both the instructions to be followed in an experimental task and the answer mode that they would have to give to each of the questions formulated after the end of the critical interval. The latter was done to eliminate the possible anxiety gener- ated by the request of answering through a computer.

The prospective paradigm was used in all conditions of this experiment; that is, all subjects - by means of the instructions received - knew before the beginning of the stimulus display that they would be required to give a judgment about the duration of the interval they had experienced. Attempts were made to prevent the subjects from counting or otherwise ‘timing’ their time during the presentation of the word lists, which might help them in the time estimation task, by telling them that they were required to estimate the ‘felt’ time and that to follow some kind of ‘rhythm’ could interfere with the word counting task, which was as important as the other. They were also asked to count the number of nouns which were examples of what had been indicated by the orientative phrases. A sample phrase (but which was not otherwise used in the experiment) was given and the type of decision that they had to make about the nouns appearing was indicated.

The 8 words presented after each orientation phrase were always examples of what was indicated by the phrases, although the subjects were unaware of this. The subjects were informed that the nouns to appear might or might not be examples of what would be indicated by the orientation phrases and the example given to them offered both possibilities. Our aim with this imprecision was to maintain the attention of the subjects throughout the task.

Whereas in the tone absence conditions the task was double, in the tone presence situations, besides the two mentioned tasks, the subjects were told that after some words a tone might appear that they would hear through the left


headphone. They were told that immediately after hearing it they had to push the red key - the M - as fast as possible. They were also told that counting the words and attending to the time tasks were more important than the tone detection itself, even though they were urged to do all three tasks as well as possible.

After receiving the appropriate instructions, the students were asked to remove their watches and jewelry with the excuse that these metal objects sometimes interfere with the electronic recording equipment. They were asked to wrap these objects in a handkerchief and put them into their pocket.

Regarding data collection, in the immediate estimation conditions the temporal reproduction task began immediately after the stimulus display had ended. Two seconds after ending, the temporal reproduction counting instructions were shown in which subjects were asked to indicate the number of words that were examples of each semantic category or of each writing type. The messages varied depending on the type of processing task condition undergone by each subject. The phrases that each subject saw were the same as those that appeared in the interval corresponding to the stimulus display phase which the subject had undergone and were in the same order. Both the previous screen and this one lasted 78 sec. At 80 set after the end of the temporal reproduction task, instructions for an interest scale task appeared in which the subjects were asked to indicate on a 7-point scale (1 meant nothing interesting and 7 meant very interesting) the degree of interest evoked by the experimental task. Finally, a recognition memory task was displayed in which the subject was told that s/he must decide which words of those displayed had appeared during the stimuli display phase and which ones had not been displayed and thus had not been seen by the subject during the previous interval.

To end, after the subjects answered yes or no to the last word, a message appeared in which they were told that the experiment had finished; s/he was asked not to speak about the experiment with anybody, and was thanked for participating and his/her discretion. In addition, s/he was convened to a meeting with all participants in which the research and each study condition would be explained.

In remote estimation conditions, the counting task was displayed immediately after the end of the 80 set experimental interval. When that task had finished, the subjects were entertained by doing easy additions until the 120 set counted from the end of critical interval had passed, the moment when the temporal estimation task began. The rest of the tasks followed the previously described order.

The counting task was placed immediately after the end of the experimental interval and not after the duration judgment to avoid the subject forgetting the counts made and attempting to answer randomly by guessing because the counting task was delayed considerably (120 set + the duration of the reproduction). The precision in the recording of the number of examples counted for each category was important for us since with this variable we were trying to ensure that the subjects were indeed attending to the presentation of the nouns and were not processing a different amount of stimuli randomly under the different conditions. The underlying aim of this was on the one hand to control a rare variable and, on


Table 1

Mean directional error and standard deviations (in parentheses) as a function of the processing task type introduced, retention interval used, and tone manipulation

Processing Tone

Absence Presence

Immediate estimation

Exclusively structural 0.483 (0.226) 0.272 (0.142)

Exclusively semantic 0.309 (0.181) 0.425 (0.148)

Mixed 0.335 (0.193) 0.201 (0.096)

Remote estimation



Mixed 0.415 (0.251) 0.558 (0.344)

the other, to test the storage-size model in memory with respect to the amount of stimuli observed. These reasons were considered in contrast to the possibility of maintaining the sequence corresponding to the immediate estimation conditions - ADDITIONS-REPRODUCTION-COUNTING. Since this latter sequence would have also led to disparity in the measurements regarding the time elapsed to counting, we chose the previously mentioned order.

The experimental session lasted approximately 30 minutes.

2.2. Results

The statistical calculations were done by means of version 3.1 of the SYSTAT program (Wilkinson, 1986). The accepted error level was 5%.

Duration judgment Duration reproductions were transformed into directional error data to test

whether they were under- or overestimations with respect to the true duration; for this, the data were converted into ratio scores by dividing each judgment by the actual elapsed time. As we predicted in Hypothesis 1, all reproductions were underestimations with regard to physical time.

From the analysis of variance (ANOVA) performed on these directional error data (see Table 1) it is appropriate to underline the importance of a significant main effect of the retention interval (RI) (F(1, 180) = 9.476, p = 0.002, MSe = 0.044), which indicates that when this increases, prospective duration judgment also increases in such a way that what is seen as a certain duration immediately after happening (important underestimation of physical time) is subjectively lengthened when a certain time elapses before asking for such a judgment. However, contrary to Hypothesis 2, duration judgment with the least directional error, and hence more reliable, was associated with the 120 set RI.


No tone

V With tone

0.21

Excl. str. Excl. sern. Mlxed

Processing type

Fig. 2. Interaction between tone manipulation and processing task type introduced during critical time

period with respect to the directional error in the underestimation made.

From the significant interaction between tone manipulation and the processing task type (F(2, 180) = 3.87, p < 0.03) it can be inferred (see Fig. 2) that tone presence has a strong effect under conditions taken up by exclusively structural processing, such that its effects are noted by a shortening of the reproduction made (Hypothesis 3). The other two conditions types were not affected by the presence of tone.

The main effect of the RI varies with the significant RI X processing task type interaction (F(2, 180) = 4.325, p < 0.02). When the RI is zero, the greatest directional error corresponds to mixed processing condition without any differences between conditions occupied with each type of non-mixed processing (see Fig. 3).

0.5

m : .- ;; !! 0.3 .- 0

a2 1 I I 1

Excl. str. Excl. serv. Mixed

RI = 0”

- RI=120”

Processing type

Fig. 3. Interaction between retention interval used and processing task type introduced during critical time interval with respect to the directional error in the underestimation made.


0,6 -

L

L OS - L

aI

s :

0.4 - ._

F L .- 0 0,3 -

I F&O/NT

_ RI=O/YT

_I RI=1 20/NT

v RI=l20NT

0.21

Excl. estr. Sem. estr. Mixed

Processing task

Fig. 4. Second order interaction between retention interval used, tone manipulation and processing task

type introduced with respect to the directional error made in time reproduction judgments.

However, apart from the fact that when remote prospective estimation is used smaller underestimations of physical time are obtained under all the task conditions, when the RI relative to the time judgment is 120 set, it is the condition occupied with mixed processing that is associated with the most accurate duration judgment, with no important differences between the conditions occupied by each non-mixed processing type (Hypothesis 4).

Hypothesis 5 can only be contrasted after analyzing how much cognitive effort was demanded by the three types of processing tasks (see below).

Finally, a significant interaction was obtained among the three independent variables considered (F(2, 180) = 5.527, p = 0.005). When prospective time estimation was immediate and without tone, the condition occupied by the exclusively structural processing involved the smallest error in the estimation, with higher and similar error levels between the other two types of conditions. The introduction of tone, converting the task into one of triple demand, totally inverted the results (see Fig. 4) because it affected more the conditions which had previously demanded less mental effort, hence producing the greatest error under conditions with changes in the processing type.

However, when time estimation was made after a 120 set RI, whereas without tone the condition with changes led to a greater underestimation than the other two, with tone the directional error made in non-mixed processing conditions increased considerably, but the deviation in time underestimation under cognitive change conditions strongly decreased. These results can only be interpreted after analyzing the behavior of the rest of variables measured.

It should be mentioned that the interpretation of the first and second order interactions was made on the basis of figures, based on the high degree of statistical significance apparent in them. The program employed to perform the analyses did not allow us to contrast the interactions in order to observe the significant differences among the levels of the variables.


Table 2

Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) of mean reaction time per interval as a function of the

retention interval used and processing task type introduced in tone presence conditions

Processing task Estimation

Immediate Remote

Exclusively structural 0.621 (0.150) 0.594 (0.149) Exclusively semantic 0.733 (0.170) 0.754 (0.149)

Mixed 0.630 (0.137) 0.646 (0.179)

Tone response From the ANOVA carried out on the mean reaction times to the tone (see

Table 2) a significant main effect of the processing task type (F(2, 90) = 6.693, p = 0.002, MSe = 0.024) was obtained.

Significant differences between the RT corresponding to non-mixed processing conditions (F(1, 90) = 12.14, p = 0.001) and between the exclusively semantic processing and mixed processing conditions (F(1, 90) = 7.34, p = 0.008) were found by means of orthogonal simple comparison tests between means.

As can be seen in Fig. 5, the subjects needed significantly more time to answer to the tone under the exclusively semantic processing conditions than in the other two condition types. Thus, the condition occupied by semantic processing was suitably manipulated to demand a greater cognitive effort than that in which it was processed by means of an exclusively structural mode and the one which demanded changes between one processing type and another. However, an intermediate level of cognitive effort with statistical significance was not reached in the mixed processing condition even though the mean index of reaction time did in fact lie within those of the non-mixed processing conditions (Hypothesis 6).

Taking into account this finding and those previously obtained with respect to the judgement of duration, it is seen that Hypothesis 5, which predicted an inverse relationship between cognitive effort and time estimation, was not valid.

0.8 -

!i 2

0.7 -

;

0.6 :A_

Excl. estr. Excl. sem. MIxed

Processing type

Fig. 5. Mean reaction times to tone as a function of processing task type.


Table 3 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) of the whole noun count expressed as a function of

processing task type introduced, retention interval used, and tone manipulation

Processing Tone

Absence Presence




Mixed 29.188 (4.355) 27.813 (6.755)

Remote estimation



Mixed 25.750 (5.556) 25.813 (6.462)

Examples count Contrary to Hypothesis 7, an ANOVA performed on the examples count scores

(see Table 3) revealed that more nouns were counted as positive examples (F(1, 180) = 5.134, p < 0.03, MSe = 23.748) when the RI relative to the duration judgment was zero (M = 29.0005) than when two minutes had passed until the time judgment (M = 27.41).

This result is surprising because the RI is effective for the estimation of duration, not for the examples count. Curiously, when a 120 set RI was used, the count was measured earlier than when a RI of zero was used.

When response to tone was required, the examples count was less exact (F(1, 180) = 8.511, p = 0.004). Th is f act constitutes additional evidence that the presence of tone increases task demands as a whole.

The main effect of processing task type (F(2, 180) = 7.972, p < 0.001) demanded that we investigate where such a difference might lie. On carrying out ‘a posterior? contrasts we observed that there were significant differences in the amount of counted nouns between the exclusively structural processing and exclusively semantic processing conditions (F(1, 180) = 11.381, p = 0.001) and between the former and the condition of mixed processing (F(1, 180) = 12.509, p = 0.001).

As can be seen in Fig. 6, the greatest number of positive examples was counted in the time periods occupied by the exclusively structural processing (M = 30.188) and a similar amount of them in exclusively semantic and mixed processing conditions (Means of 27.141 and 27.282, respectively).

These results could be due to the greater difficulty in decision taking needed in the noun groups with the orientative phrases to process the meaning of nouns belonging to very restrictive categories. This interpretation receives support in the comparison made between the count means corresponding to the two orientation phrase-types existing in the mixed processing conditions. Here we observed that more nouns were indeed significantly counted as positive examples under structural orientation conditions (t(63) = 2.432, p < 0.02).


31

30

29

28

27

1

Excl: estr. Excl. sem. Mied

Processing type

Fig. 6. Mean noun count as a function of processing task type.

Degree of interest As we predicted in Hypothesis 8, an ANOVA performed on the degree of

interest evoked by the experimental tasks performed during each time period (see Table 4) neither showed significant main effects nor interactions, which indicates the absence of differential interest about the critical interval as a function of any of the three factors investigated.

Verbal recognition Finally, an ANOVA performed on the verbal recognition data (see Table 5)

showed that the main effects for tone manipulation and processing task type were significant @‘Cl, 180) = 11.748, p = 0.001, and F(2, 180) = 36.033, p < 0.001, respectively); besides this, a significant interaction between these factors was obtained (F(2, 180) = 4.318, p < 0.02).

Table 4

Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) of degree of interest evoked by the experimental task as a function of the processing task type introduced, retention interval used, and tone manipulation

Processing Tone

Absence Presence




Mixed 3.188 (1.471) 3.313 (1.580)

Remote estimation



Mixed 3.938 (1.124) 4.563 (1.711)


Table 5 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) of the percentage of correctly recognized nouns per

interval as a function of the processing task type introduced, retention interval used, and tone

manipulation

Processing Tone


Exclusively structural 36.719 (12.263) 46.875 (20.540) Exclusively semantic 71.094 (18.663) 58.203 (19.595) Mixed 59.766 (14.428) 43.750 (21.890)

Remote estimation

Exclusively structural 39.844 (25.298) 31.250 (14.434) Exclusively semantic 69.531 (16.117) 63.281 (17.211) Mixed 62.891 (15.219) 43.359 (14.696)

The main effect of tone manipulation shows that a smaller correct recognition of the verbal material was associated with the conditions of tone presence. This shows that when in such conditions cognitive demands increase, the amount of available resources to perform different tasks decreases; this decrease also affects the noun retention displayed.

The main effect of the processing task type was investigated by orthogonal simple comparison tests. All comparisons were significant: that existing between the recognition of non-mixed processing conditions (F(1, 180) = 72.051, p < O.OOl), the contrast between the exclusively structural processing and processing with change conditions (F(1, 180) = 18.942, p < O.OOl), and that existing between the condition with changes and the exclusively semantic processing condition (F(1, 180) = 17.107, p < 0.001). As we expected (Hypothesis 9), significantly less is recognized in the condition occupied by the exclusively structural processing than in the condition occupied by the mixed processing, and less in these than in that corresponding to the exclusively semantic processing.

The above two main effects varied with the significant interaction existing between tone manipulation and the processing task type (see Fig. 7).

The presence of tone makes recognition very difficult in the mixed processing conditions and, to a lesser although still important extent, in the exclusively semantic processing conditions. However, it does not show disturbing effects on the exclusively structural processing condition in which recognition is so small that the greatest cognitive demands assumed to be produced by the demand of answering the tone do not differentially affect the sparing recognition of the verbal material.

3. Discussion

The introduction of tone to measure directly the cognitive effort demanded by the main task has revealed two findings. On the one hand, it has shown its clearly


80 -

30 ! 1 I I Excl. estr. Excl sem. Mixed

Processing type

Fig. 7. Interaction between tone manipulation and processing task type with respect to mean percent-

age of correctly recognized material.

disturbing effect - such as was observed in a previous work (Buena, 1992) - not only on the duration judgments made, but also on the counting of the whole number of examples and on the recognition of the nouns displayed. On the other hand, as we postulated, the greatest cognitive effort was produced in the intervals occupied by the exclusively semantic processing task, although since differences in the RT to the tone between the mixed processing task and the exclusively structural processing conditions did not appear, one must assume that the mental effort invested in both types of conditions was the same.

The different amount of nouns counted as examples of what was indicated by the instruction phrases may be due to the fact that to process whether the nouns belonged to the proposed restrictive categories does not only demand more cognitive resources, but also sometimes leads to an incorrect decision. This can be inferred from the decreased amount of nouns considered to be examples of the categories in exclusively semantic and mixed processing conditions when, in fact, all the nouns belonged to the proposed categories.

Regarding the recognition memory of the verbal material displayed, the result of greatest interest for us was the confirmation of our proposal of an intermediate recognition shown in conditions occupied by the mixed processing task with respect to those in which non-mixed processing tasks were performed, with the smallest recognition for the exclusively structural orientation task conditions and the greatest recognition for the only semantic processing conditions. This finding indicates the success obtained by manipulation of the orientation phrases introduced into the design in order to obtain a differential retention of the verbal material following the tradition started by Craik and Lockhart (1972) and Craik and Tulving’s (1975) processing levels theory.

The RI used relative to the duration judgment shows important effects on the time reproduction, both in itself and also interacting with the other two factors. In general, contrary to what was expected, under remote estimation conditions the reproductions were more accurate than in the immediate estimation situation,


which supports the well-known statement of W. James (1890) that durations feel short when happening, but long when they are seen in retrospect. This sentence can be applied, however, in prospective conditions but not, as some theoreticians have interpreted after W. James’ assertion (Block, 19791, to differentiate between prospective and retrospective conditions.

The distinction between immediate and remote prospective estimation has been revealed as crucial. Coadjuvant factors in the constitution of time judgment are apparent in different ways under both conditions. As we mentioned previously, when time judgment is requested immediately after the critical period has finished, the most accurate estimations belong to the condition occupied by the exclusively structural processing and the conditions associated to the mixed processing are the most imprecise. The reproductions carried out in the only semantic processing condition lie between the other two conditions. Since the two first condition types demand a similar level of cognitive effort, this cannot account for the discrepancy. Both condition types differ in the whole amount of counted examples, in the retention of verbal material and in the absence/presence of relevant cognitive changes, aspects among which that responsible for the variations in time reproductions should be distinguished.

It is unlikely that the whole amount of nouns considered positive examples would be the factor responsible for the variation observed in the reproductions. This is because the conditions occupied with the exclusively semantic processing and those occupied with the mixed processing do not differ in this variable, whereas - by contrast - they do differ with respect to time estimation.

If the amount of remembered verbal material was indeed the crucial factor, estimations corresponding to the two non-mixed processing conditions - exclusively structural and only semantic - would be at extreme poles, with the shortest and the longest reproductions, respectively, associated with them; this was not the case either.

The only variable that remains as the one being mainly responsible for the reproductions performed by means of an immediate prospective paradigm is the presence of relevant cognitive changes for the subject, in this case leading to a very striking underestimation of the physical duration displayed.

Following a line of reasoning analogous to the above, in remote estimation conditions the variables introduced as a control in our design can also be discarded from the role of mediators of duration experience, the main weight resting on the changes in the subjects’ cognitive context. However, in these conditions such indications lead to the most reliable time judgments, although they are also underestimations of physical time.

Thus, Fraisse’s (1963) proposal that ‘direct time judgments [are] founded immediately on the changes we experience and later on the changes to remember’ (p. 234) could explain what was happening under our experimental conditions. While immediately after the end of the critical interval the most varied condition is subjectively shortened, with the passage of time the subject would have rebuilt the changes that occurred during the time interval, leading him/her to give a longer reproduction.

118 B. Buena Martinez /Acta Psychologica 85 (1994) 99-121

Thus, the defence that human beings use changes in the cognitive context as the main indicators to constitute subjective estimations about the duration of a time period seems to have obtained support under the prospective conditions of this experiment, even though the direction of the judgments varied depending on whether such judgments were made immediately or some time after the end of the critical time period.

Of great interest is that, be they longer or shorter, all the reproductions made by the subjects were underestimations with respect to the physical time involved. Even under the structural conditions and without tone the durations were strongly underestimated by the subjects. If all the resources available to the subject were divided between the two main processes of estimating duration and processing of concurrent information (Thomas and Weaver, 19751, to the extent that the non- temporal information processing task requires resources, the task of temporal estimation will be likewise affected and the amount of reproduction will be decreased. This clearly indicates that this type of temporal estimation task is a highly controlled process requiring considerable capacity and interfering with other cognitive activities that also demand capacity (Hasher and Zacks, 1979). In the light of this, duration estimation cannot be encompassed within automatic processes as defined by Hasher and Zacks (1979). It seems to be clear that time information about the duration of an interval demands a large amount of resources.

To sum up, the results obtained by us with the immediate and remote prospective estimations of 80 set intervals are important evidence in favor of the proposal of a model based on cognitive change being the main factor accounting for judgments on subjective duration. They also complement the results obtained by other investigators concerning the role of change in retrospective comparative judgments (Block, 1982, 1986; Block and Reed, 1978) and in immediate prospective conditions with the use of short durations and other types of methods (Poynter, 1983; Poynter and Homa, 1983).

However, we do stress the recommendation made in a previous work (Buena, 1992) about the need for incorporating other types of techniques in the measurement of cognitive effort that should not include an additional task to be done by the subjects. This is precisely because the presence of tone in this experiment led to distorsions in the time judgments that are difficult to interpret without experimental precedents with this manipulation in the literature on time cognition. Given their simplicity (Kahneman, 19831, an alternative - if the necessary technical means were available - would lie in physiological techniques.

The use of changes in the cognitive context as the main indicators for configu- rating time reproductions by means of a prospective experimental paradigm together with the absence of equality between immediate and remote prospective estimations suggest that the attentional location model proposed by Zakay (1989) is inadequate to explain such results. A contextual model such as that offered by Block (1985, 1989, 19901, which proposes the absence of isolated effects of the factors affecting time experience and the dynamic character of the interactions among them, fits in much better with the results obtained in our investigation.


The complexity of time cognition (Crowder and Greene, 1987) may involve the crucial dependence of the results on time estimation on the conditions under which judgment is made. Although this idea is not new in the literature on this topic (Block, 1989; Bueno, 1991; Fraisse, 1984; Hicks et al., 1976; Zakay and Fallach, 19841, such an argument places us within the framework of experimental research with all the variations pertinent to the methodology employed and task conditions involved.

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The role of cognitive changes in immediate and remote prospective time estimations