The Intention to Conceal Does Not Always Affect Time Perception.

Hiroshi Nittono,Izumi Matsuda

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.781685

Abstract

The display duration of stimuli is overestimated due to the increase in phasic arousal induced by the stimuli or high levels of background arousal. A previous study demonstrated that display duration of items (2 s) was overestimated when a participant attempted to conceal one of the items so as not to be detected in the concealed information test (CIT). As the time perception remained the same between the item to be concealed and the other items, the overestimation was thought to be due to the high level of background arousal under the conceal condition. Duration of 2 s may be too long to examine the phasic arousal effect induced by the concealed item. The present study conducted three online experiments with shorter durations, that is, each of three items was presented with duration of 1, 0.5, and 2 s in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The participants were instructed to conceal one of the three items under the conceal condition and did not conceal any item in the innocent condition. The difference in time perception between the conceal and innocent conditions or between items under the conceal condition was observed in none of the three experiments. The result indicates that temporal overestimation does not occur when a participant is only concealing an object. Rather, temporal overestimation would occur only when the level of background arousal is amplified by the concealment.

Highlights

The fact that arousal speeds up the pacemaker of an internal clock is well known (Treisman, 1963; Gibbon et al, 1984; Zakay and Block, 1997; Droit-Volet and Meck, 2007)
Previous scholars have examined the psychological processes related to concealment using the paradigm of the concealed information test (CIT), which is a psychological tool for criminal investigations
Previous studies on the CIT indicate that the relevant item elicits orienting responses that induce phasic arousal and responses related to cognitive control to inhibit the orienting responses

Summary

Introduction

The fact that arousal speeds up the pacemaker of an internal clock is well known (Treisman, 1963; Gibbon et al, 1984; Zakay and Block, 1997; Droit-Volet and Meck, 2007). The display durations of stimuli are generally overestimated when the level of background arousal is high under certain conditions (Wittmann and Paulus, 2008; Droit-Volet et al, 2011; Piovesan et al, 2019). The duration of a stimulus is overestimated when it induces the increase of phasic arousal compared with non-arousing stimuli (Gil and Droit-Volet, 2012). Arousal change occurs under various cognitive processes, one of which is concealment. Previous studies on the CIT indicate that the relevant item elicits orienting responses that induce phasic arousal (e.g., increased skin conductance response) and responses related to cognitive control to inhibit the orienting responses (e.g., respiration suppression; Matsuda et al, 2013; klein Selle et al, 2016, 2018; Matsuda and Nittono, 2018).

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion