Timed Judgment Task Research Articles

It's about time: How integral affect increases impatience.

Affect is integral to most decisions involving temptation. For instance, people may have difficulty saving for a house because they keep spending money on enjoyable, but more immediate items and events (e.g., fancy dinners). Little is known about how affect influences these types of intertemporal decisions. On the one hand, studies investigating the influence of incidental affect (i.e., affect that is unrelated to a decision, such as a person's mood) suggest that positive affect leads to increased impatience. On the other hand, studies on the role of integral affect (i.e., affect that is caused by the decision itself) in risky choice suggest a stronger focus on outcomes, which would result in increased patience. This investigation uses a delay discounting task to test whether integral affect is related to impatient behavior. In addition, it examines how affect impacts time perception. In a within-subjects design, choices between options with relatively affect-rich and relatively affect-poor outcomes were compared. Participants also completed a future time judgment task. Across 2 studies (N = 23 and N = 56), findings consistently showed that positive affect leads to changes in time perception. Participants judged future durations to be longer when considering options associated with high positive affect than when considering options with lower positive affect. In addition, in the second study we found evidence that affect impacts time attribute weighting. Importantly, our results suggest that changes in future time judgment may influence the propensity to make impatient choices without changing discounting per se. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Borderline personality features and integration of positive and negative thoughts about significant others.

Taking the bad with the good is a necessity of life, and people who readily integrate thoughts of their loved one's flaws with thoughts of their more positive attributes maintain more stable, satisfying relationships. Borderline personality disorder, however, is often characterized by interpersonal perceptions that fluctuate between extremes of good and bad. We used a timed judgment task to examine information processing about significant others in individuals high in borderline personality features relative to healthy individuals and those high in avoidant personality features. In Study 1, when judging traits of a liked significant other, same-valence facilitation by negative primes (judging negative traits faster than positive traits after a negative prime) was significantly stronger in the borderline features group than the other two groups, and was inversely associated with self-reports of integrated thoughts about significant others. In contrast, same-valence facilitation by positive primes (judging positive traits faster than negative traits after a positive prime) was significantly stronger in the avoidant features group than the other two groups, and inversely associated with self-esteem. No between-group differences in same-valence facilitation were statistically significant when participants judged traits of disliked significant others, liked foods, and disliked foods. In Study 2, same-valence facilitation by negative primes when judging traits of a liked significant other was significantly associated with less integrated positive/negative thoughts about that person in a 12-day diary. These results identify an implicit information-processing pattern relevant to interpersonal difficulties in borderline personality disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record

Working Memory Modulates the Association between Time and Number Representation

Time and numbers are interconnected in mental representation. Here we investigated whether this interaction between time and number could be modulated by working memory (WM). In experiment 1 participants first memorized a digit and then judged which of the two digits presented in succession were presented for longer (or shorter), with either one or neither of them being the same as the WM digit. The results showed that, when one of two digits was the same as the WM content, the numerical magnitude effect on temporal performance was abolished, whereas the interference effect occurred only when both the two digits were not the same as the WM content. In order to further investigate whether this effect was due to stimuli repetition, we instructed participants in experiment 2 to merely attend to the original digit but not memorize it during a time judgment task. The results did not reveal the modulation of WM content on time-number link. The WM-based interference effect, however, might reflect decision bias rather than perception illusion. In experiment 3 we eliminated response biases by using equality judgments, and found that WM content had no impact on time-number link. Finally, we conducted experiment 4 (comparative duration judgment) and experiment 5 (equality duration judgment) by manipulating WM load, and demonstrated that the WM-based interference effect was relevant to the duration of the WM content solely in comparative judgment. We concluded that the mental association between time and number representation could be modulated by WM at decision level.

Cultural modulations of space–time compatibility effects

The representation of elapsing time may require spatial attention. In certain circumstances, this spatial representation develops from left to right. This is suggested by a performance advantage in responding short with the left hand and long with the right hand (spatial-temporal association between response codes [STEARC]). The present study tests whether one possible determinant of the directionality of the STEARC effect is cultural. In particular, we investigated whether reading/writing habits can affect STEARC direction by administering a visual time judgment task to Italian participants, who were exposed to a left-to-right reading/writing system, and Israeli participants, who mainly used a right-to-left system. The Italian participants showed a left-to-right STEARC effect, while this effect was not present in the Israeli group. The study demonstrates that cultural habits can influence the way in which spatial attention supports the representation of time, similar to the pattern found in other nonspatial domains such as numbers.

The Attenuation Effect in Timing: Counteracting Dual-Task Interference with Time-Judgment Skill Training

A basic finding in the time-perception literature is an interference effect in dual-task conditions involving concurrent timing and distractor tasks. Dual-task conditions typically cause time judgments to become less accurate than single-task conditions in which subjects judge time alone. Previous research (Brown, 1998 Psychological Research 61 71-81; Brown and Bennett, 2002 Psychological Research 66 80-89) has shown that practice on the distractor task reduces interference, a phenomenon called the attenuation effect. The present research was designed to determine whether practice on the time-judgment task would produce a similar result. In experiment 1, subjects reproduced 6-14 s intervals in a series of practice trials. Some subjects received feedback regarding the accuracy of each response and others received no feedback. Subsequent testing under dual-task (timing + digit memory) conditions showed that feedback training reduced interference. In experiment 2, the practice trials included both single-task and dual-task conditions. Later tests showed that feedback training eliminated the interference effect. The results highlight the role of attentional resources, the transfer of skills, and compensatory decision processes in time-judgment skill training.

Speeded Detection of a Tone Embedded in a Quasi-isochronous Sequence: Effects of a Task-Irrelevant Temporal Irregularity

One reason why music features temporal regularities is that they elicit expectancies about when an event will occur, focusing a listener�s attention around certain points in time. Evidence comes from phoneme monitoring tasks (using reaction times, J. G. Martin, 1979) and pitch and time judgment tasks (using accuracy measures, M. R. Jones, H. Moynihan, N. MacKenzie,& J. Puente, 2002; E. W. Large & M. R. Jones, 1999). Reaction times were faster and accuracy was higher for rhythmically expected elements than for unexpected elements. By contrast, A. Penel and M. R. Jones (2004) recently reported an inversely related finding: faster reaction times for rhythmically unexpected tones, which they labeled a temporal capture effect. The present research examines expectancy versus capture phenomena by using a speeded detection task in which listeners must respond to a lower pitched target located within monotone and isochronous sequences. One interonset interval was shortened or lengthened independently of the target�s position. Temporal irregularities tended to trigger false alarms, suggesting capture effects. Patterns of reaction times showed expectancy effects when the temporally perturbed event preceded the target, but these effects seemed to decrease with time in the sequence. When the target itself was temporally perturbed, some capture was observed, but only when the target came early in the sequence. We conclude that Martin�s (1979) expectancy effects in phoneme monitoring were coarticulatory rather than rhythmical.

Time in depression and mania: Running fast or running slow? A computer based, controlled study of 93 depressed, manic and control subjects

Objective: Studies on the time sense of depressed patients have revealed inconsistent results. Manic patients have been almost neglected. Method: Patients with a major depressive episode (N=32), or a manic episode (N=30) (both DSM-IV, M.I.N.I.-confirmed), and 31 healthy controls were included. The subjective time experience was assessed by a visual analog scale (VAS), the objectively measurable time judgment abilities by the Chronotest, a computer program developed for this study, consisting of time estimation and time production tasks. Results: Controls reported a balanced, manic patients an enhanced, and depressive patients a slowed experience of time flow in the VAS (p<0.001). In the time judgment tasks, however, both depressed and manic patients showed time over-estimation for the longer time spans (p<0.008). Conclusion: This largest study on time sense in manic patients confirmed results of a divergent alteration of time experience in depressive and in manic patients but revealed an uniform time over-estimation by both patient groups in time judgment tasks.

Time judgments as a function of clock duration: effects of temporal paradigm and an attention-demanding nontemporal task.

Participants estimated the duration of one of four intervals (12.5, 25, 37.5, 50 sec.). They performed an attention-demanding nontemporal task (the 'Stroop' task) during the interval's presentation. Half of the participants in each group were told of the time judgment task prior to the interval's presentation (prospective paradigm), and the other half after its presentation (retrospective paradigm). Both prospective and retrospective time judgments substantially underestimated the durations of intervals, and there was no significant effect of temporal paradigm. The results are discussed in relation to the attentional models of timing.

Detailing the nature of talker variability effects in speech perception

Previous studies have shown that changes in a talker's voice from stimulus to stimulus affect the perception and recall of spoken words [see Mullennix et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 365–378 (1989); Martin et al., J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cog. (in press)]. In the present study, the perceptual consequences of talker variability were investigated in further detail. In order to assess the relative magnitude of intratrial versus intertrial changes in a talker's voice, a same‐different reaction time judgment task was used. Performance was compared across three talker conditions: single talker, multiple talker across trials, and multiple talker within trials. In addition, the effects of talker variability over time were examined by observing performance across varying ISI delays. The results obtained provide further information about the nature of talker variability effects in the perception of spoken words and will be discussed in terms of their relationship to perceptual normalization processes in speech perception. [Work supported by NIH.]

The biological basis of impulsiveness: the significance of timing and rhythm disorders

High-impulsive subjects often do say things on the spur of the moment and/or make up their minds quickly. The description of impulsivity as a personality trait involves a number of basic research questions including: 1. 1. From a psychometric viewpoint, how inclusive or broad is impulsivity as a personality trait? 2. 2. How does impulsivity relate to other personality traits? 3. 3. Is there a pattern of biological correlates of impulsivity that is distinct from other personality traits? 4. 4. What is the relationship between cognitive and behavioral impulsivity? This paper addresses those four questions. Psychometric analysis of issues in impulsivity indicates the need for a distinction between broad and narrow impulsivity traits and further redefinition of the latter in terms of cognitive and motor components. This research has also shown that impulsiveness has an orthogonal relationship with measures of anxiety. In perceptual-motor tasks, high-impulsive subjects perform less efficiently and with greater variability on a wide range of these tasks, and in particular when the task involves responding to two or more sequential stimuli. High-impulsive subjects underproduce time intervals in time-judgment tasks; this and other findings suggest that high-impulsive subjects have a faster cognitive tempo than low-impulsive subjects. The interaction of impulsivity and anxiety in the performance of perceptual-motor tasks is also reflected in psychophysiological measures; differences in impulsivity are more evident with electrocortical measures and differences in anxiety are reflected in ANS measures while performing the tasks.

Effect of pulse on time judgment using subjects with fixed rate cardiac pacemakers.

There is disagreement in the literature regarding the correlation of pulse rate and time judgment. The time judgments of 2 groups of Ss were compared before and after standard exercise. 6 Ss with fixed rate cardiac pacemakers and 12 matched controls were given time judgment tasks before and after standard exercise. There was no significant difference between groups in the ratio of pre-exercise to post-exercise judgments. The usefulness of the design employing patients with cardiac pacemakers is emphasized.