Individual and age-specific perceptions of time by adults

Abstract

The paper presents an experimental research of individual, age and gender specifics of time perception by adults from 18 to 75 years old (750 people). The methodological techniques used are: estimation, measuring and reproduction of time intervals within one minute. It was shown that when perceiving equal in value time intervals the respondents reveal opposite individual tendencies, manifested either in over- or under-estimation of time intervals, or in their under- or over-measuring, or in the absence of any particular tendency. Age and gender differences in the perception of time by adults were revealed. An analysis of the obtained data showed the presence of continuous micro-age shifts within the age range of 18-75 years, which is characterized by a rather complex, contradictory structure in the development of features of time intervals perception. On the border of early and middle adulthood at age 26, there is a slight increase in the accuracy of time interval estimation and measurement. On the border of middle and late adulthood, at age 45, there is already a sharp decline in the accuracy of time perception. Whether these age periods can be called critical or transitional cannot be unequivocally stated. Experimental data show that we cannot regard adulthood as a stationary, fully stabilized state where nothing happens anymore or as a period of gradual unfolding of involutionary processes only.