Factors influencing passage of time judgment in individuals' daily lives: evidence from the experience sampling and diary methods

People often express feeling that time passes quickly or slowly in their daily lives, which is termed passage of time judgment (PoTJ). Past studies have shown that PoTJ is affected by emotional valence and arousal; however, few studies have verified the effects of alertness, attention to time, and time expectation on PoTJ and whether the effects are stable over different time periods. Using the experience sampling method (ESM) and diary method, the present study collected data from 105 participants and examined for the first time whether alertness, attention to time, and time expectation affect PoTJ based on daily life data, as well as whether above factors, emotional valence, and arousal are stable over different time periods. All participants answered a questionnaire five times a day on their in-the-day PoTJ and related factors regarding the last 30 min, and answered the same questionnaire once a day at 23:00 regarding the of-the-day PoTJ. The results showed that alertness and time expectation, as well as emotional valence and arousal, predicted an individual's in-the-day PoTJ over a shorter period (i.e., the last 30 min); in contrast, only time expectation and emotional arousal predicted of-the-day PoTJ over a longer period (i.e., the past day). These results suggest that, alertness and time expectation are important factors influencing PoTJ, in addition to emotional state. Of-the-day PoTJ correlates most strongly with the mean and latest in-the-day PoTJ, implying that overall perception of time passage is influenced by both cumulative temporal experience and recent temporal experience.

The effect of emotion intensity on time perception: a study with transcranial random noise stimulation

Emotional facial expressions provide cues for social interactions and emotional events can distort our sense of time. The present study investigates the effect of facial emotional stimuli of anger and sadness on time perception. Moreover, to investigate the causal role of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in emotional recognition, we employed transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) over OFC and tested the effect on participants' emotional recognition as well as on time processing. Participants performed a timing task in which they were asked to categorize as "short" or "long" temporal intervals marked by images of people expressing anger, sad or neutral emotional facial expressions. In addition, they were asked to judge if the image presented was of a person expressing anger or sadness. The visual stimuli were facial emotional stimuli indicating anger or sadness with different degrees of intensity at high (80%), medium (60%) and low (40%) intensity, along with neutral emotional face stimuli. In the emotional recognition task, results showed that participants were faster and more accurate when emotional intensity was higher. Moreover, tRNS over OFC interfered with emotion recognition, which is in line with its proposed role in emotion recognition. In the timing task, participants overestimated the duration of angry facial expressions, although neither emotional intensity not OFC stimulation significantly modulated this effect. Conversely, as the emotional intensity increased, participants exhibited a greater tendency to overestimate the duration of sad faces in the sham condition. However, this tendency disappeared with tRNS. Taken together, our results are partially consistent with previous findings showing an overestimation effect of emotionally arousing stimuli, revealing the involvement of OFC in emotional distortions of time, which needs further investigation.

The role of valence, arousal, stimulus type, and temporal paradigm in the effect of emotion on time perception: A meta-analysis

Anecdotal experiences show that the human perception of time is subjective, and changes with one's emotional state. Over the past 25 years, increasing empirical evidence has demonstrated that emotions distort time perception and usually result in overestimation. Yet, some inconsistencies deserve clarification. Specifically, it remains controversial how valence (positive/negative), arousal (high/low), stimulus type (scenic picture/facial expression/word/sound), and temporal paradigm (reproduction/estimation/discrimination) modulate the effect of emotion on time perception. Thus, the current study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to quantify evidence for these moderators. After searching the Web of Science, SpiScholar, and Google Scholar, 95 effect sizes from 31 empirical studies were calculated using Hedges'g. The included studies involved 3,776 participants. The results a highlighted significant moderating effect of valence, arousal, stimulus type, and temporal paradigm. Specifically, negative valence tends to result in overestimation relative to positive valence; the increasing arousal leads to increasing temporal dilating; scenic picture, facial picture, and sound are more effective in inducing distortions than word; the overestimation can be better observed by discrimination and estimation paradigms relative to reproduction paradigms, and estimation paradigm is likely to be the most effective. These results suggest that the effect of emotion on time perception is influenced by valence, arousal, stimulus type, and temporal paradigm. These mitigating factors should be considered by scientists when studying time perception.

Moderate physical activity alters the estimation of time, but not space

Moderate physical activity can influence cognitive functions and visual cortical activity. However, little is known about the effects of exercise on fundamental perceptual domains, such as spatial and temporal representation. Here we tackled this issue by testing the impact of physical activity on a temporal estimation task in a group of adult volunteers in three different conditions: (1) in a resting condition (baseline), (2) during moderate physical activity (cycling in place – PA), and (3) approximately 15 to 20 min following the physical activity phase, in which participants were seated and returned to a regular heart rate (POST). We show that physical activity specifically impacts time perception, inducing a consistent overestimation for durations in the range of milliseconds. Notably, the effect persisted in the POST session, ruling out the main contribution of either heart rate or cycling rhythmicity. In a control experiment, we found that spatial perception (distance estimation) was unaffected by physical activity, ruling out a major contribution of arousal and fatigue to the observed temporal distortion. We speculate that physical exercise might alter temporal estimation either by up-regulating the dopaminergic system or modulating GABAergic inhibition.

How Does Emotion Influence Time Perception? A Review of Evidence Linking Emotional Motivation and Time Processing

Emotions have a strong influence on how we experience time passing. The body of research investigating the role of emotion on time perception has steadily increased in the past twenty years. Several affective mechanisms have been proposed to influence the passing of time. The current review focuses on how three dimensions of affect-valence, arousal, and motivation-are related to time perception. The valence-based model of time perception predicts that all positive affects hasten the perception of time and all negative affects slow the perception of time. Arousal is thought to intensify the effects of the influence of valence on time perception. In much of this past work, motivational direction has been confounded with valence, whereas motivational intensity has been confounded with arousal. Research investigating the role of motivation in time perception has found that approach-motivated positive and negative affects hasten the perception of time, but withdrawal-motivated affects slow the perception of time. Perceiving time passing quickly while experiencing approach-motivated states may provide significant advantages related to goal pursuit. In contrast, perceiving time passing slowly while experiencing withdrawal-motivated states may increase avoidance actions. Below, we review evidence supporting that approach motivation hastens the passing of time, whereas withdrawal motivation slows the passing of time. These results suggest that motivational direction, rather than affective valence and arousal, drive emotional changes in time perception.

The Effects of Angry Expressions and Fearful Expressions on Duration Perception: An ERP Study

Little is known about the electrophysiological basis of the effect of threat-related emotional stimuli with different motivational direction on duration perception. Thus, event-related potentials were employed to examine the effects of angry expressions and fearful expressions on perception of different duration (490-910 ms). Behavioral results showed there was a greater underestimation of the duration of angry expressions (approach-motivated negative stimuli) than fearful expressions (withdrawal-motivated negative stimuli), compared with neutral expressions. Event-related potentials results showed that, the area of Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) evoked by angry expression, fearful expression and neutral expression gradually increased. These results indicated that specific electrophysiological mechanisms may underlie the attention effects of angry and fearful expressions on timing. Specifically, compared with neutral expressions, fearful expressions and angry expressions both are likely to distract more attentional resources from timer, in particular, angry expressions attract more attention resources than fearful expressions from timer. The major contribution of the current study is to provide electrophysiological evidences of fear vs. anger divergence in the aspect of time perception and to demonstrate beyond the behavioral level that the categorization of threat-related emotions should be refined so to highlight the adaptability of the human defense system.

Frontal Asymmetry in an approach-avoidance conflict paradigm

The frontal cortex appears to be asymmetrically related to approach motivation, avoidance motivation, and motivational conflict. Much past work has investigated approach and avoidance motivation, but little work has investigated frontal asymmetry in the face of motivational conflict in part because of the inherent conflict between avoidance motivation and motivational conflict. The current study sought to disentangle the existing confound between avoidance motivation and motivational conflict. In the study, participants selected the likelihood of viewing negative (vs. positive) images for zero reward points (avoidance only condition), or negative (vs. positive) images for the chance to win reward points (approach-avoidance conflict conditions). Participants exhibited greater relative right frontal asymmetry while making percent likelihood selections in the approach-avoidance conflict conditions relative to the avoidance only conditions. Additionally, participants exhibited greater relative right frontal asymmetry while viewing disgust images during trials with the greatest approach-avoidance conflict relative to trials with the lowest approach-avoidance conflict. Together, these results suggest that motivational conflict, and not avoidance motivation, is associated with greater relative right frontal activity.

Do I dislike what you dislike? Investigating the effect of disgust on time processing

Time perception can be distorted by emotional stimuli. The present study aims to investigate the effect of disgust on time perception in young adults. Here, we report two experiments in which a time bisection task was used with intervals lasting 400 ms (short standard) to 1600 ms (long standard). In Experiment 1, temporal intervals were marked by neutral images or images from food (rotten, joyful), and facial (disgust, happy) categories. In Experiment 2, disgust-eliciting and neutral stimuli belonging to seven different domains were used: faces, food, animals, body products, injury/infections, death and hygiene. Results showed temporal overestimations when, compared to neutral conditions, disgusted faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and disgusting death and hygiene stimuli (Experiment 2) were used, and a temporal underestimation when images of rotten food (Experiment 1) were used. Results are discussed in terms of arousal-based and attention-based processes and showed that the degree of the emotional component influences time perception.

Time Passes Slowly When You Are Concealing Something

The item to be concealed elicits greater physiological arousal than other items. Since high physiological arousal causes an overestimation of time, the display duration of an item is expected to be perceived as longer when people intend to conceal it. After stealing and concealing one item, 36 university students were asked to judge the display duration of an item as shorter than, equal to, or longer than a memorised duration of 2 s. Pictures of three items including the stolen item were presented in the guilty condition, whereas pictures of three items that had not been stolen were presented in the innocent condition. The display of all items in the guilty condition was perceived as longer than in the innocent condition without difference between the concealed and other items. The intention to conceal increases tonic arousal reflected in a higher skin conductance level and leads to a non-specific temporal overestimation.

Time flies faster when you're feeling blue: sad mood induction accelerates the perception of time in a temporal judgment task

Investigating the interaction of mood and time perception has provided key information in the mechanisms that underlie cognition and emotion. However, much of the literature that has investigated the role of emotions in time perception has focused on the valence of stimuli, or correlational studies of self-reported mood. In the present study, 31 healthy undergraduates completed a temporal judgment task before and after an autobiographical sad mood induction procedure. In the temporal judgment task, participants identified whether a presented neutral stimulus was onscreen for the same duration as a target (2 s). Along with target trials, very short (1.25 s), short (1.6 s), long (2.25 s), and very long (3.125 s) trials were presented in random order and in equal proportion. Following mood induction, ratings of sadness and fear increased, but returned to baseline at the end of the study. After the mood induction, participants significantly increased temporal overestimation as participants were more likely to affirm short than long-duration trials as matching the target. These results indicate that transient changes in mood in otherwise healthy adults can accelerate the subjective experience of time. Sadness may increase physiological components of time perception that are related approach motivation.

Vigilance Tasks: Unpleasant, Mentally Demanding, and Stressful Even When Time Flies

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether perceived time progression (PTP) moderates participants' negative reactions to vigilance tasks.

BACKGROUND

Vigilance tasks are rated by participants to be unenjoyable and as having high levels of workload and stress. Based on the adage, "You are having fun when time flies," we tested the possibility that accelerating PTP might reduce these negative experiences.

METHOD

Two studies were performed, involving a long 30-min and a short 12-min vigil. We manipulated participants' PTP by creating a mismatch between their expectations about how long they would perform the task and the actual time that they were engaged.

RESULTS

PTP was significantly faster for participants who were led to expect that the vigilance task would last longer than it did relative to those led to expect that task duration would be shorter than it actually was and for controls for whom task duration was equal to the expected duration. However, accelerating PTP had no effect in either experiment on undesirable reactions to the vigilance tasks. Participants uniformly rated both tasks as unenjoyable, as having a high level of workload, and as stressful. Apparently, vigilance isn't fun even when time flies.

CONCLUSION

Our findings greatly underscore the depth to which negative subjective reactions are embedded in the nature of vigilance tasks and therefore that these tasks can have potentially serious costs to participants in terms of health, safety, and productivity.

APPLICATION

These costs must be considered at the operational level.

Lifting, tasting, and carrying: The interaction of magnitude and valence effects in time perception

Magnitude effects (e.g., heavier or faster is longer) and valence effects (e.g., negative > positive) are widely observed in time perception studies, but not well understood. In four experiments, we explored how different action contexts (e.g., tasting, lifting) affected magnitude and valence effects. In two experiments a valence effect occurred: Tasting a sweet food (watermelon) led to temporal underestimations relative to a neutral stimulus, while sour and bitter foods led to overestimations. However, when the same foods were presented in a lifting context a magnitude effect occurred: Reproduced times for the heavier food (watermelon) were overestimated relative to the lighter foods. In a fourth experiment magnitude and valence interacted: Imagining tasting increasing amounts of lemon or carrying increasing loads of lemon, both negative, yielded magnitude effects; however, imagining carrying lemons to feed malnourished people, which was positive, did not. Results present challenges for several common theoretical approaches (e.g., arousal, attention, common magnitude theory) but provide support for affordance theory and perceptual salience theory. Timing depends on action relevance and is jointly shaped by valence and magnitude.

Negative affect varying in motivational intensity influences scope of memory

Emotions influence cognitive processes involved in memory. While some research has suggested that cognitive scope is determined by affective valence, recent models of emotion-cognition interactions suggest that motivational intensity, rather than valence, influences these processes. The present research was designed to clarify how negative affects differing in motivational intensity impact memory for centrally or peripherally presented information. Experiments 1 & 2 found that, relative to a neutral condition, high intensity negative affect (anger) enhances memory for centrally presented information. Experiment 3 replicated this effect using another high intensity negative affect (threat). Experiment 4 extended this by finding that, relative to a neutral condition, low intensity negative affect (sadness) enhanced memory for peripherally presented information. Finally, in Experiment 5, the effects of sadness and threat on scope of memory were directly compared, finding that threat narrowed scope of memory, while sadness broadened scope of memory. Together, these results provide additional support for the motivational dimensional model of cognitive scope, in that high intensity emotions narrow cognitive scope, while low intensity emotions broaden cognitive scope.