Time Perception Bias Test

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

Millisecond thanks Joe Vitriol and Dr. Gordon Moskowitz for their help with this script
and for sharing the original geometric shapes used!

Last Modified: January 23, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements a time perception bias test. The test is based on the assumption that people overestimate the duration of items that heighten their arousal.

The implemented procedure is based on:

Gordon B. Moskowitz, G.B., Olcaysoy Okten, I. & Gooch, C.M. (2015). On Race and Time. Psychological Science, 26, 1783-1794. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615599547 (Experiment1)

Duration

15 minutes

Description

People tend to overestimate the duration of items that heighten their arousal. In this script, people are asked to estimate the duration of items from 2 categories that frequently elicit anxiety: spiders and dogs, and a control category (shoes) that is assumed to be arousal neutral.

Each target item is presented after a geometric shape. The geometric shapes act as the 'standard' stimuli and are always presented for the same fixed duration (here: 600ms). The target items, on the other hand, are presented for variable durations (with the same number of durations being longer and shorter than the standard). Participant are asked to decide whether the target stimuli were presented for a longer or shorter duration than the preceding standard. The proportion of longer judgements is taken as a measure of time bias for arousal-neutral (baseline bias) and potentially arousal-positive targets.

Control and target categories can easily be altered.

Procedure

Method of Constant Stimuli:
each target category uses a fixed set of durations that are presented in a randomized order.

1. Demo/Practice:
- 5 trials to get familiarized with the set-up
- stimuli are selected from random object/animal categories

2. Test:
- 4 blocks (editable, under section Editable Parameters
- each blocks presents:
- 21 control trials (here: shoes), 21 target A (here: spiders), 21 target B (here: dogs)
(number of trials are editable under section Editable Parameters) => 63 trials per block
- each comparison trial randomly (without replacements) selects from 7 fixed durations: 300,380,480,600,760,960,1200 (in ms)
=> 3 shorter than standard, 1 at standard, 3 above standard (for each category)
=> 3 repetitions of each comparison duration per category per block => 12 repetitions of each comparison duration per category across 4 blocks
The minimum recommended number of comparison duration repetitions per category is 10.
- trial order is random

Trial Sequence:
standard (randomly selected geometric shape) for 600ms
-> comparison stimuli for variable duration -> Judgment via keypress (S = shorter; L = longer)
-> ITI (default: 1000ms)


By default each block repeats the same stimuli as the one before; stimuli are randomly selected
To avoid repeats, add as many items to the respective item elements (under editable stimuli) as trials should be run overall,
across all blocks for each condition (e.g. use 84 stimuli instead of 21 for target A for no repeats across blocks)

Stimuli

- geometric shapes generously shared by Dr. Gordon Moskowitz
- images of shoes, spiders, dogs were collected from the internet
and converted in black and white pics in Paint.Net

Instructions

provided by Millisecond - can be edited under section Editable Instructions

Summary Data

File Name: timeperceptionbiastest_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

Raw Data

File Name: timeperceptionbiastest_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.