Rammsayer Thomas, Ulrich Rolf
Institute for Pyschology, University of Göttingen, Gosslerstr. 14, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2005 Oct;120(2):141-71. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2005.03.005.
Several lines of research suggest that two distinct timing mechanisms are involved in temporal information processing: a sensory mechanism for processing of durations in the range of milliseconds and a cognitively controlled mechanism for processing of longer durations. The present study employed a dual-task approach and a sensory interference paradigm to further elucidate the distinct timing hypothesis. Experiment 1 used mental arithmetic as a nontemporal secondary task, Experiment 2 a memory search task, and Experiment 3 a visuospatial memory task. In Experiment 4, a loudness manipulation was applied. Mental arithmetic and loudness manipulation affected temporal discrimination of both brief and long intervals, whereas the two remaining tasks did not influence timing performance. Observed differences in interference patterns may be explained by some tasks being more difficult than others. The overall pattern of results argues against two qualitatively distinct timing mechanisms, but is consistent with attention-based cognitive models of human timing.
多项研究表明，两种不同的计时机制参与了时间信息处理：一种是用于处理毫秒级时长的感觉机制，另一种是用于处理更长时长的认知控制机制。本研究采用双任务方法和感觉干扰范式，以进一步阐明不同的计时假说。实验1使用心算作为非时间性次要任务，实验2使用记忆搜索任务，实验3使用视觉空间记忆任务。在实验4中，进行了响度操纵。心算和响度操纵影响了短间隔和长间隔的时间辨别，而其余两项任务则不影响计时表现。观察到的干扰模式差异可能是由于某些任务比其他任务更难。结果的总体模式与两种性质不同的计时机制相悖，但与基于注意力的人类计时认知模型一致。
