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. 2023 May 18:14:1160047.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1160047. eCollection 2023.

Development and relationship between the judgment of the speed of passage of time and the judgment of duration in children

Natalia N Martinelli #  1 , Sylvie Droit-Volet #  1
Affiliations

Development and relationship between the judgment of the speed of passage of time and the judgment of duration in children

Natalia N Martinelli et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between the awareness of the speed of the passage of time, the judgment of durations and experiential factors in children aged 4-9 years. They were asked to judge the duration and the speed of the passage of time for different intervals (second and minutes), and to rate their feelings (arousal, happiness, sadness, and task difficulty) during each interval. The results indicated that 8-9-year-olds' judgment of the passage of time is extremely flexible and context-dependent, representing the duration and/or the individual changes in subjective experience (emotion). In contrast, young children's judgment of the passage of time was not related to duration. However, their judgments were not given randomly. They judged that time passed more quickly when they felt happier and more alert. The passage-of-time judgment was therefore initially grounded in emotional and sensory-motor experience, i.e., in their perception of changes (acceleration and deceleration) in self-movement (successions of states and their extension). Therefore, duration judgment and passage-of-time judgment initially develop separately and are later combined when children understand the logical link between speed and duration.

Keywords: children; consciousness; duration; embodiment; emotion; passage of time; time.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Average scores of both 4.5 and 8 years groups for: passage of time (upper left panel), duration (upper middle panel), arousal (upper right panel), happiness (lower left panel), sadness (lower middle panel), and task-difficulty (lower right panel).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean duration judgments plotted against interval duration for 4.5 years (A) and for 8 years’ groups (B). Mean passage of time judgments plotted against duration judgments for 4.5 years (C) and 8 years (D).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mean passage of time judgments plotted against happiness rates for 4.5 years (left panel) and for 8 years’ groups (right panel).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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