Time perception, estimation paradigm, and temporal relevance.

52 women and 20 men (M age = 25.3 yr., SD = 4.1) reproduced one of three durations (15, 30, and 45 sec.) of a uniform visual stimulus in either a prospective or a retrospective estimation paradigm. In contrast to the prospective conditions, the participants in the retrospective conditions did not know that time estimation would be required subsequently. However, temporal relevance in the retrospective conditions was raised explicitly by instructing the participants to wait for the termination of a visual stimulus and to press a button immediately after the stimulus had disappeared. The results contrasted with most findings of comparisons between prospective and retrospective duration judgments: there were no differences between the conditions regarding their mean estimates. However, intersubject variability of temporal judgments was higher in the retrospective conditions than in the prospective conditions. The results were interpreted within the framework of attentional models of temporal information processing.