Prospective and retrospective judgments of time as a function of amount of information processed.

Abstract

The subjects, 120 college students, sorted cards for 42 sec with instructions to process 0, 1, or 2 bits of information per card (response uncertainty) and then were asked to make an absolute judgement of the interval's duration. Half of the subjects knew this judgement would be required before the interval (prospective paradigm); half did not (retrospective paradigm). Judged time was an inverse linear function of response uncertainty under the prospective paradigm, whereas no significant function was obtained under the retrospective paradigm.