IMPORTANCE OF TIME AND ITS SUBJECTIVE SPEED.

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that persons who tend to judge time to be important also tend to experience time as passing swiftly. Earlier research has demonstrated that elderly persons, to whom time is presumed to be quite important, prefer faster images to describe time's passage than do young adult Ss. In this study, 39 young adults were instructed to value accuracy in performing a problem-solving task, while 40 other young adults, matched for age, education, and IQ, were instructed to value speed in performing the same task. The two groups did not differ in subjective speed of time, as measured by the “Time Metaphor Scale.” If the validity of the present methods is accepted, it is necessary to conclude from these results that the importance of time is not directly associated with its subjective speed. Direct estimations of four brief time intervals were also obtained from the 40 Ss instructed to value speed over accuracy. Within this group, persons who tended to over-estimate objective time also tended to prefer slower, more static images to describe the passage of time. This latter finding was discussed in terms of the deceleration of an internal chemical clock as originally proposed by Hoagland.