The watched pot still won’t boil: Expectancy as a variable in estimating the passage of time

Cahoon, D. D.; Edmonds, Ed M.

doi:10.3758/bf03334455

Cited by 45 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…One exception is the study of expectant waiting within the context of the "watched-pot phenomenon. " When subjects are asked to signal when a beaker of water begins to boil, this time period is significantly overestimated relative to a comparable interval in which no such expectancy is induced (Block, George, & Reed, 1980;Cahoon & Edmonds, 1980). Similar sets of findings have been reported by others who have used a variety of techniques to induce conditions of expectant waiting (e.g., Edmonds, Cahoon, & Bridges, 1981;Filer & Meals, 1949;Hare, 1963;Schiff & Thayer, 1968).…”

supporting

confidence: 66%

Time estimation and expectancies

Boltz

1993

Mem Cogn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this research was to examine the influence of different types of expectancies on time estimation behavior. In Experiment 1, subjects were led to expect that a given number of trials would occur in a music perception task. In Experiment 2, expectancies concerning the duration of a given waiting period were varied. Results of both experiments indicated that the confirmation/violation of expectancies exerted a significant impact on duration judgments. When subjects received more/fewer trials than expected or waited for a duration that was longer/shorter than expected, the total duration of these time spans was over-and underestimated, respectively. Conversely, time estimates were relatively accurate when subjects' expectancies were confirmed. The results of Experiment 1 further revealed that reaction time responses within the music perception task were also systematically influenced by the expected amount of activity. Results are discussed in terms of a framework that emphasizes the role of anticipatory attending on time estimation behavior.In everyday behavior, there are many situations in which we judge the duration of a given event or how much time was spent performing a particular activity. A primary goal of time estimation research is to determine the factors that result in the relative accuracy of these estimates and/or systematic distortions wherein the relevant time span is either under-or overestimated. Some of these factors are assumed to involve certain constitutional states within an individual (e.g., stress and arousal, aging, drugs), whereas others are assumed to arise from the environmental context itself (e.g., the complexity or familarity of an event, task demands). One variable, however, that has received relatively little empirical attention involves the expected ending time of the event or activity to be judged. That is, the various events and activities that fill our daily lives are typically demarcated from one another by a nonarbitrary beginning and ending point. And we often can anticipate when in time these events and activities will end, so that we can move on to something new. These types of temporal expectancies can stem from multiple sources. One is based on prior experience and knowing the temporal sequence of activities that comprise a given behavioral script. For example, most of us know that the ending of the "restaurant script" involves paying the bill and walking out the door. A second source derives from a consensual agreement about how much time or activity will be spent performing a given behavior before its end. For example, a car mechanic may tell us that we will have to wait 45 min before he or she is finished with the repairs, and a basketball coach may tell

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 66%

Time estimation and expectancies

Boltz

1993

Mem Cogn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A service encounter can be considered a social situation of which the goal state may be defined as ''a longer, and affective responses more negative, when the wait occurs further from the goal state of the service body state, behavior of self or others, or condition of the physical world, which is consciously desired, or is encounter or subsequent to goal achievement than when close to the goal state. The anticipatory model (Cahoon and Edmonds 1980) yields different predictions, suggesting that a delay should be felt to be most irritating *Michael K. Hui is associate professor of marketing, the Chinese close to the goal state. Both theories have received empiri-…”

Section: The Effect Of Delay Type and Service Stage On Consumers' Reamentioning

confidence: 98%

The Effect of Delay Type and Service Stage on Consumers' Reactions to Waiting

Hui¹,

Thakor²,

Gill³

1998

J CONSUM RES

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The more attention is allocated to a cognitive processor of time, the longer duration estimates will be. This model has been validated in many experiments in the frame of a prospective paradigm in which subjects knew in advance that they would be required to estimate time (e.g., Burnside, 1971;Cahoon & Edmonds, 1980;Hicks et al, 1977;Lordahl & Berkowitz, 1975;Vroon, 1970;Zakay & Fallach, 1984; Zakay, Nitzan, & Glicksohn, 1983).The explanation suggested by the attentional model for inaccuracy in time judgments focuses on the suboptimal division of attention between the passage of time and the concurrent task performed during the target interval. It is suggested here that overestimation is a result of allocating a substantial amount of attentional resources to the passage of time, whereas underestimation results from allocating a small amount of available resources to the passage of time.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness of attention allocation and time estimation accuracy

Zakay

Tsal

1989

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Subjects performed a psychomotoric task and gave a prospective verbal estimate of its duration. One group of subjects was then made aware of optimal division of attention between the psychomotoric task and the passage of time, and again performed the task and prospectively estimated its duration. It was found that the accuracy of the time estimation markedly improved for that group of subjects relative to a control group whose awareness of the division of attention was not raised. Implications for understanding time estimation processes are discussed.Time judgments of short intervals are generally found to be positively correlated with the objective clock time of the estimated intervals, but the correlations differ significantly from 1.0 (Hicks & Miller, 1976). Giving feedback on the accuracy of time estimation was found to decrease the absolute estimation error of short intervals (e.g., Hicks, 1976;Hicks & Miller, 1976). A different approach for reducing time estimation inaccuracy was attempted in the present study; it is based on an attentional model for prospective time estimation. Proponents of the attentional approach (e.g., Frankenhauser, 1959;Hicks, Miller, Gaes, & Bierman, 1977;Priestly, 1968) view time estimation as a direct function of the amount of attention allocated for processing the passage of time. The more attention is allocated to a cognitive processor of time, the longer duration estimates will be. This model has been validated in many experiments in the frame of a prospective paradigm in which subjects knew in advance that they would be required to estimate time (e.g., Burnside, 1971;Cahoon & Edmonds, 1980;Hicks et al., 1977;Lordahl & Berkowitz, 1975;Vroon, 1970;Zakay & Fallach, 1984; Zakay, Nitzan, & Glicksohn, 1983).The explanation suggested by the attentional model for inaccuracy in time judgments focuses on the suboptimal division of attention between the passage of time and the concurrent task performed during the target interval. It is suggested here that overestimation is a result of allocating a substantial amount of attentional resources to the passage of time, whereas underestimation results from allocating a small amount of available resources to the passage of time. It is commonly accepted that there is considerable diversity in the efficiency with which tasks may be time shared, resulting either from differences in basic time sharing ability or from differences in practice (Wickens, 1984). It also was found, however, that it is possible to train and improve time sharing skills regarding psychomotoric tasks (e.g., Gopher & Brickner, 1980 making estimators aware of the need for an optimal time sharing and division of attention in the context of a prospective time estimation, estimation accuracy would be improved. METHOD SubjectsFifty undergraduate students at Tel Aviv University participated in the experiment in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Experimental Tasks and ProcedureThe subjects were required to disassemble a three-dimensional puzzle and to reassemble it again...

show abstract

The watched pot still won’t boil: Expectancy as a variable in estimating the passage of time

Cited by 45 publications

References 3 publications

Time estimation and expectancies

Time estimation and expectancies

The Effect of Delay Type and Service Stage on Consumers' Reactions to Waiting

Awareness of attention allocation and time estimation accuracy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About