Abstract
In current research, variations in retrospective passage of time judgments for long intervals are commonly attributed to differences regarding the number of experiences in these intervals or the accessibility of the respective memories. This seems to imply the assumption of a covert retrieval, where authors presume that memories from the respective interval influence the experience of time without these memories being explicitly activated when judging. However, no studies have systematically investigated the relation between the experience of time and the respective experiences and memories. To this end, we analyzed data from three studies in which participants judged the passage of the last 5 years either before being asked to select outstanding life events from a list (Studies 1a and b; N = 293 and 263) or before recalling as many meaningful personal memories as were spontaneously accessible (Study 2; N = 262). Despite applying a statistically powerful trial-by-trial mixed-effects modeling approach, neither in the separate datasets nor in the combined dataset, passage of time judgments were predicted by the number of reported events or memories. This suggests that people's spontaneous judgments of the passage of multiannual intervals are not necessarily affected by a covert retrieval of memories from the respective period.
Highlights
The velocity with which humans perceive time to pass by is a common matter of discussion in both daily life, where people often seem to complain about time flying, as well as in academics, where researchers try to validate and explain this phenomenon
To our knowledge, no studies have systematically investigated whether the velocitiy, with which time in the range of several years is judged to have passed, is associated with the number of remarkable events that happened in these years. Given both the notion of non-routine-experiences being encoded and stored better as well as the idea that contextual change-indicating events should be crucial for the experience of time, having experienced more of these notable events should be associated with slower passage of time judgments (POTJs)
Given that the events presented on the list are likely to have a significant impact on people’s lives and indicate change, and given the assumptions of the contextual change hypothesis (Block and Reed, 1978), a higher number of such events should be associated with slower POTJ’s
Summary
The velocity with which humans perceive time to pass by is a common matter of discussion in both daily life, where people often seem to complain about time flying, as well as in academics, where researchers try to validate and explain this phenomenon. To our knowledge, no studies have systematically investigated whether the velocitiy, with which time in the range of several years is judged to have passed, is associated with the number of remarkable events that happened in these years Given both the notion of non-routine-experiences being encoded and stored better as well as the idea that contextual change-indicating events should be crucial for the experience of time, having experienced more of these notable events should be associated with slower passage of time judgments (POTJs). The studies were largely alike, differing mainly in adjustments necessary due to the different media used for the surveys: Study 1a was a paper-pencil version, while Study 1b was a replication using an online-survey-tool (www.soscisurvey.com, Leiner, 2014)
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