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Prospective Judgment of Short-Intervals in a Cohort of University Students

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Abstract

Ability to perceive fast-paced events (a range of short intervals) is one of the important cognitive skills in humans. The underlying mechanism of this ability still remains elusive. We designed a study to investigate the subjective perception of short-intervals (10, 20, 60 and 120 s) in a cohort of healthy young male and female university students. The subjects estimated the time intervals, prospectively using time production (TP) and verbal estimation (VE) methods. Of the four tested intervals, subjects produced 60 s close to accuracy than other intervals. The intervals were overproduced and underestimated with TP and VE, respectively. Males estimated 60 s more accurately than females. In all subjects, verbal estimates of 60 and 120 s were positively correlated with sleep duration. The duration of exposure to direct sunlight was significantly correlated with the verbal estimation of 60 and 120 s intervals in females. It is concluded that humans track passage of short intervals fairly accurately and 60 s might be the interval that is judged more accurately in males. This behavior could be ascribed to the interval timer that might have evolved with frequently used verbal expression, i.e., “wait a minute please!” In addition, the factors, such as gender, sleep duration and length of sunlight exposure might considerably modulate human abilities to sense time.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, through its DRS-SAP Scheme sanctioned to the School of Life Sciences, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, in the thrust area, Chronobiology and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, through the sanction of a Major Research Project under the scheme Cognitive Science Research Initiative (CSI). Authors thank Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for awarding Senior Research Fellowship.

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  1. School of Life Sciences, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, 492 010, India

    Atanu Kumar Pati & Babita Pande

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  1. Atanu Kumar Pati
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  2. Babita Pande
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Correspondence to Atanu Kumar Pati.

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Pati, A.K., Pande, B. Prospective Judgment of Short-Intervals in a Cohort of University Students. Natl. Acad. Sci. Lett. 36, 191–199 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40009-013-0118-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40009-013-0118-2

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