Priming time: The relationship between subjective time and retrospective time perception

Abstract: This study considered the question whether retrospective time perception was affected by priming the experimental condition to be more aware of subjective time during the experience of the target duration. Awareness of subjective time was operationalized by the direction of attention toward a running stop-watch, while participants were shown images for various durations on which they were later tested. The participants was tested on durations mediated by working memory since these were deemed the most likely to produce an effect. The results were not significant. While this suggest that retrospective time perception is not a matter of perceiving passed subjective time, it is possible that the consciousness state of subjective time still has some connection to its function. More specifically, this study shows that attention directed toward subjective time does not affect retrospective time perception in working memory durations.