Expertise and time perception
By sylvie | November 6, 2009
Now this is interesting: a study that suggests that experts perceive words from their own domain of knowledge as having been presented longer than other words:
Experts often appear to perceive time differently from novices. The current study thus examined perceptions of time as a function of domain expertise. Specifically, individuals with high or low levels of knowledge of American football made judgements of duration for briefly presented words that were unrelated to football (e.g., rooster), football specific (e.g., touchdown), or ambiguous (e.g., huddle). Results showed that high-knowledge individuals judged football-specific words as having been presented for a longer duration than unrelated or ambiguous words. In contrast, low-knowledge participants exhibited no systematic differences in judgements of duration based on the type of word presented. These findings are discussed within a fluency attribution framework, which suggests that experts’ fluent perception of domain-relevant stimuli leads to the subjective impression that time slows down in one’s domain of expertise.
This is from a paper by Matthew G. Rhodes and David P. McCabe entitled Expertise makes the world slow down: Judgements of duration are influenced by domain knowledge, which was published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol 62, issue 12, pages 2313-2319.
By the way, am I the only person here who thinks that paying $30 for a copy of an article is way over-priced, considering that if I simply photocopied it, it would cost me tops 70 cents (if the photocopiers are still at 10 cents a page - even at 25 cents a page, it’s still less than two dollars)? I feel bad for researchers who are at small instititutions that can’t afford to pay for these journals.
Topics: Psychology, Expertise |
