PSYC 212 Study Guide - Final Guide: Retinotopy, Proprioception, Mechanoreceptor
Final Grade: A
Lecture 16 +17 – Time
What is time?
1. Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently
irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
2. Fourth dimension (in addition to the three spatial dimensions).
3. Time is « What the clock reads » - it can’t be reduced to anything else!
EPISTEMOLOGY – HOW CAN WE KNOW THE WORLD
1. idealism: human knowledge is a construction of the mind and does not necessarily
correspond to the external reality.
A) e.g. we perceive the world in 3D but our retina is flat!
B) We think that we « observe » causation, but in reality all we « see » is co-occurrence.
2. “What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you
can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by
your brain. This is the world that you know.”
1. realism: human knowledge tries to reveal the properties of the outside world; the truth of
knowledge is determined by the correspondence of the knowledge with the outside world.
2. But we have no « proof » of the external reality…
3. Still, we wouldn’t advise jumping out of a window to check whether or not it will kill you!
1. Critique of pure reason: Attempt to
reconcile idealism with realism.
*Kant said that we must have an innate
knowledge of time
*If we didn’t have our sense of time built into
us – it’s impossible to make sense of our
sensation.
2. We may never really know the thing-in-
itself (Noumenon)
3. All we can know is the impression that the
noumenon exerts on our senses
(Phenoumenon).
4. Our minds have to contribute innate
knowledge in order to make sense of our
sensations (space, time, cause and effect).
5. Perception is extremely rich and reliable
and allows us to interact optimally with our
environment.
Vierordt’s law
*Veirodt did studies on Time:
Study 1:
Experimenter had to Clap, then clap again after 7
seconds.
He then had a participant do it, and match the interval
himself.
Results:
A) shorter intervals are overestimated (too slow)
B) longer intervals are underestimated (too fast)
C) there is an « indifference point » for which time is
perfectly estimated → always around 3-4 seconds.
Y = error of reproduction
« Perceived present »
1. For many researchers (Fraisse, 1964), the indifference point is representative of the
« perceived present » , i.e. events outside of this range fall into the « past » or « future ».
2. Research on time perception generally focuses on intervals <5 sec.
3. After 2-5 sec, performance benefits from
segmentation strategies, such as counting.
*According to another researcher, he wanted to find out
what the present was.
*The perceived present is BETWEEN 2-5 SECONDS.
*So things that happened for more than 5 seconds →
it’s considered the past.
*We say 1 missisipi → because it’s longer to track (we tend to underestimate).
*There’s a problem – Vierordt’s used 7 seconds for his studies in which the mean is 3.5.
*The more accurate was also at 3.5s (indifference point).
*issue is, we tend to regress to the mean when we’re not sure. We are biased to the mean.
Central tendency
1. Vierordt’s law has been found to be largely
inconsistent across several paradigms
*So someone decided to do same
experiment with a different range of
intervals, to see if that’s what was actually
happening.
*they did 3 experiments with 3 intervals.
A) 400-800 ms (short)
B) 800 – 1200 (long)
C) there was also intermediate.
*They found that the indifference point was
always at the average.
2. One explication is that it may be caused by
a response bias towards the mean of the
presented intervals.
3. « In doubt, the mean is the best guess »
4.
A) longer intervals are pushed down towards
the mean
B) smaller intervals are pushed up towards
the mean
C) the indifference point will be higher if
intervals are
higher
Does time perception agree with Weber’s law? Scalar properties of interval timing
^This is the next question people asked
1. Estimation error increases in proportion to the target interval
2. The ratio of error/mean is a constant
3. This adhere’s to Weber’s law
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