Temporal cognition

Timing is essential to the functioning of organisms. Perhaps because the time dimension plays such an important role in human life, the psychology of time was an important topic of early psychological research and theorizing. An examination of the role that time plays in people's lives can focus on various aspects of temporal experience. For example, a researcher can study what makes people judge events to be simultaneous, or judge one event as preceding or following another event. In this article, we focus on the processes that subserve experiences of short duration (ranging from seconds to minutes). Duration timing is essential for representing the immediate external environment. For example, driving or crossing a busy street requires the continual estimation of speed and duration. As people wait in a queue while shopping or receiving a service, feelings of lengthened duration may determine whether they complete the transaction or abandon it. A person using computer software assesses the time required to complete an operation; if this duration seems excessive, the attitude regarding the software will be negative. Because many everyday situations involve duration estimation, it is important to understand the underlying processes.