Aging and judgments of duration: Effects of task complexity and method of estimation

Abstract

The effects of aging on judgments of short temporal durations were explored using the prospective paradigm and the methods of verbal estimation and production. Younger and older adults performed a perceptual judgment task at five levels of complexity for periods of 30, 60, and 120 sec. Participants either continued to perform the task for a specified interval (production) or were stopped and then verbally estimated the interval. Older adults gave shorter verbal estimates and longer productions than did younger adults. The methods of verbal estimation and production yielded approximately equal durationjudgment ratios once range effects were taken into account. Task complexity had little effect. The major conclusion is that duration judgment ratios decrease from younger to older adults when the intervals are filled with a mental task.

Well-Being over the Life Span: Semiparametric Evidence from British and German Longitudinal Data

“…From the estimation results, it is evident that those who leave the sample are (James 1981, p. 588). In recent decades, the psychology literature has provided extensive support for the hypothesis that people have the impression that time passes more quickly with advancing age (e.g., Lemlich 1975, Baum et al 1984, Schroots and Birren 1990, Craik and Hay 1999. The age-induced decrease in metabolism, the general 3 The calculation of the income variations are based on the age-period model with life expectancy (model 2).…”

Effects of aging on absolute identification of duration.

“…Age-related declines in performance are reasonably robust on tasks involving the estimation in seconds or minutes of relatively long durations (for review, see Block, Zakay, & Hancock, 1998), particularly under conditions in which the attentional demands of the task are high (Craik & Hay, 1999;Vanneste & Pouthas, 1999). However, it is not clear whether such tasks primarily measure biopsychological timing, which is defined as "timing based directly on .…”

“…Although numerous studies have found age-related impairments (e.g., Craik & Hay, 1999;Licht, Morganti, Nehrke, & Heiman, 1985;Wearden, Wearden, & Rabbitt, 1997), others have found no age effects (e.g., Rammsayer, Lima, & Vogel, 1993;Salthouse, Wright, & Ellis, 1979;Surwillo, 1964), and there is at least one report of more accurate timing in older than in younger adults (Eisler & Eisler, 1994).…”

Does a time-monitoring deficit influence older adults' delayed retrieval shift during skill acquisition?

“…Older adults' time estimates diverged more from actual durations in both types of tasks (see also McCormack et al, 2002). Craik and Hay (1999) suggested that aging affects both an internal clock and attention devoted to the passage of time that is constrained under divided attention or other resource demands.…”

“…Block, Zakay, and Hancock's (1998) meta-analysis concluded that older adults overestimated temporal durations relative to younger adults. Craik and Hay (1999) argued that Block et al's (1998) inferences applied to simple tasks with blank or unfilled intervals between onset and duration judgment rather than filled intervals in which people were actively engaged in other tasks. They found that verbal estimates of temporal judgments with filled intervals underestimated temporal duration, whereas prospective production (requiring a response after a fixed amount of time) typically overestimated duration.…”