Prospective Time Estimation Task

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 24, 2013

Last Modified: January 20, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a Prospective Time Estimation procedure similarly to the one described in:

Wittmann, M., Leland, D.S., Jan Churan, J. & Paulus, M.P.(2007). Impaired time perception and motor timing in stimulant-dependent subjects. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 90, 183–192. (p.184)

Duration

1 minute

Description

Participants are asked to estimate a time interval that starts with the presentation of a green circle and a recording saying "start" and ends with the presentation of a red circle and the sound of an alarm. After pressing the Spacebar to turn off the alarm, participants are asked to estimate the duration of the time interval on a slider with 1s increments (0-3min).

Procedure

Participants are played a tone for a set time interval (editable).
Afterwards they have to estimate the length of the time interval via a slider-response

Stimuli

see section Editable Stimuli

Instructions

Instructions are not original to the task. They are provided by Millisecond
as htm/html pages and can be edited by changing the provided htm/html files.
To edit htm/html-files: open the respective documents in simple Text Editors such as TextEdit (Mac)
or Notepad (Windows).

Summary Data

File Name: prospectivetimeestimation_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
timeinterval Time interval to estimate in ms (default: 53000ms = 53s)
intervalestimation Stores the participant's estimation in s

Raw Data

File Name: prospectivetimeestimation_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
blockCode Name of the current block
blockNum Number of the current block
trialCode Name of the current trial
trialNum Number of the current trial
timeinterval Time interval to estimate in ms (default: 53000ms = 53s)
intervalestimation Stores the participant's estimation in s
latency The response latency (in ms)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
timeInterval Time interval to estimate in ms 53000ms = 53s
Note If time interval is changed, slider.TE_response may have to be adapted
accordingly
pretrialPause Pause in ms (empty screen) before green circle appears after starting the task