Common Words are Longer in Apparent Duration than are Rare Words.

Studies disagree regarding the relationship between word frequency and apparent duration. The present experiments evaluate factors that might explain conflict in prior studies. In Experiment 1, word frequency was manipulated factorially with three stimulus durations. High-frequency words were judged longer in duration than low-frequency words at each exposure duration. When briefer durations were used in Experiment 2, frequency did not affect subjective duration. In Experiment 3, a wider range of frequency restored the longer apparent duration of high-frequency words. Use of a postexposure mask lengthened duration judgments but did not interact with the frequency effect. Use of a paired comparison procedure in Experiment 4 again showed the frequency effect. The results are consistent with an attentional model that suggests that subjective time estimation is directly related to the amount of attention remaining to evaluate the passage of time once the stimulus target has been cognitively processed.