Abstract
A series of studies are reported in which memory, impression formation, and time estimation are shown to be a function of the passage of subjective time. By unobtrusively increasing or decreasing the speed of a clock by a factor of two an individual is led to believe that either 3 hours or 45 minutes have elapsed. In all cases the real interval, filled with a variety of booklet tasks, is 11/2 hours. The results indicate that individuals tend to forget a list of words, and in some cases the order in which they were presented, to a greater extent if they thought that they saw the list 3 hours ago vs. 45 minutes ago. Further, a description of a person is seen as more positive if the subject thought he read the paragraph description 3 hours aga vs. 45 minutes ago. Finally, estimates of a 30 and 90 second interval are reliably foreshortened or elongated depending on whether the subject has been in an experimental condition in which time (the speed of the clock) is going faster or slower than normal. A model of stimulus incompleteness is developed as one possible explanation for the results.
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Albert, S. (1978). Time, Memory, and Affect: Experimental Studies of the Subjective Past. In: Fraser, J.T., Lawrence, N., Park, D.A. (eds) The Study of Time III. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-6287-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-6287-9_12
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