Does affectivity influence on time estimation? an experimental study

Abstract

Introduction: Disruptions in passage time percepction and its duration estimation had been widely studied, particularly in pathologies where affectivivity plays the lead. It is suggested that mental illnesses characterised by negative affect are related to overestimating of time duration and slower down passage time, while in mental ilnesses characterized by positive affect the opposite is usually the case. Nevertheless, recent research come out with contradictory findings, suggesting that affect is not significant or it depends of another conditions (p.e. exposition to concurrent stimular content). The main purpose of this paper is to analyze if affect has effect on time estimation and the passage time perception. Method: 97 participants (56,7% women), whose age oscillates between 18 and 65 years old completed PANAS questionnaireand they werethesubject ofan experimental task. The experimental taskconsisting in four sets, where different contents (sitcoms, videogames and dcomentary films) were exposed to participants in four timing conditions (videos of 60, 90, 120 and 150 seconds). Following to each exposition, participants tried to estimate the video duration (in seconds) and they valued how fast was the passage time for them. Results: While negative affectivity had not influence on time estimation or percepción of the time passage, participants who report high positive affect present a lower passage time perception in exposition to TV sitcoms (t=2,22; p=0.043). These participants tended to underestimate the duration of each video (especially, sitcoms), despite the fact that this shift was not significative (r=-0,188; p=0,065). Conclusions: Although we have detected some influence of postiive affect on duration’s perception and time passage, this study disputes that affect has some significant paper on these aspects. This finding supports the need of review theories that defens a tactical relationship between affect and disruptions in time estimation and perception.

Keywords

• duración del tiempo
• paso del tiempo
• afecto positivo
• afecto negativo