TIME PERCEPTION IN CHILDREN: EMPIRICAL STUDIES IN A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH

Time perception in children has been investigated mostly by an approach that integrates information regarding time, speed and distance in a Piagetian tradition. Piaget claimed that conceptual thinking develops independently of perception. Surprisingly, little subsequent research has been attempted to explore more directly time perception (subjective experience of time) in relation to physical (clock) time in children in a developmental perspective. The purpose of the present experiments was to compare time perception in a prospective paradigm (the experience of time-in-passing) in two groups of children aged 11-13 and 14-16 years with adults aged 19-45 years, using short standard durations and the psychophysical methods of reproduction (Experiment 1) and verbal estimation in subjective seconds (Experiment 2). The results show that reproductions did not differ between the three groups (Experiment 1), while in verbal estimation a developmental trend was found (Experiment 2). The younger group of children estimated the standard durations longer and less veridical than the adults. The estimates of the older group of children lay in between. The ability of children to reproduce standard durations like adults may be due to that the method o