Speed or duration? Effects of implicit stimulus attributes on perceived duration

Abstract

The human ability to keep track of time can be distorted by several non-temporal stimulus aspects such as size or intensity. First studies indicate that not only physical but also implicit stimulus aspects can affect duration estimates. The present study expands these findings by investigating the effects of linguistic expressions including speed and duration information via temporal reproduction (Experiments 1 and 2) and temporal bisection tasks (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, implicit duration was manipulated by combining verbs that denote slow or fast motion with a path expression (to stroll to school vs. to spurt to school). Reproduced durations were consistent with an effect of implicit duration but not implicit speed. To control whether implicit speed affects perceived duration when exempted from duration information, single manner of motion verbs were presented in Experiments 2 and 3. The results speak against an effect of implicit speed analogous to physical speed.