Ratios in People's Beliefs about Experienced Duration

Abstract

Two groups of subjects were confronted with pairs of abstract situations. They were asked to indicate if the situations were likely to be experienced as equally long, or, if not, which of the two would be longer and by how much. The situations were each characterized by one stimulus attribute (pleasant, unpleasant, many, few, variable, monotonous, difficult, easy) or by the distinction of expecting something with high/low tension. Ratio judgments were collected in the format x:y, with x,y from [1, …, 9] and such that x+y = 10. The data proved to be extremely consistent and led to almost the same ratio scales for both groups. This finding strengthens the assumption that people possess highly structured belief systems about duration.