Duration differences: attentional demand or time error?

Abstract

Underwood (1975) has used judgments of duration to compare the attentional demands of learning and recall. His study is critically discussed and two further experiments are reported. In experiment 1 subjects spent 50 s learning a list of words and a further 50 s either trying to recall them or learning another list. In contrast to Underwood's subjects both groups judged the first interval to have been longer than the second. In experiment 2 three separate groups of subjects spent 50 s learning a list of items (nonsense syllables, unrelated words, or related words, as in Underwood's experiment) and then a further 50 s trying to recall them. Once again the first interval was judged to have been of greater duration. The implications of these findings for the use of duration judgments as a measure of attentional demand are discussed.