Time in Psychology

Abstract

This chapter explains the psychological research that over the past century has produced a substantial body of information about the experience of time. Humans and other animals can learn to anticipate the end of regular temporal intervals, probably using special biological timing mechanisms. Although biological timers may play a role in time perception, the registration of internal and external changes and memory for the contents of an interval probably explain most of humans' impressions of the magnitude of brief temporal durations. Our chronological sense of the past is the product of an ability to use what is remembered about an event to reconstruct its location in time, impressions of some quality of memories, such as their vividness, and a process that establishes temporal links among related events. Humans are able to have a sense of their place in time because they possess mental representations of recurrent time patterns. These representations can take several forms, including images and ordered verbal lists. (Publisher summary)

Publisher

Elsevier

Publication Date

1-1-2000

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Book Chapter

DOI

10.1016/S1387-6783(00)80018-5

Notes

Chapter 15

ISBN

9780444829030

Language

English

Format

text

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