Expertise makes the world slow down: Judgements of duration are influenced by domain knowledge

Abstract

Experts often appear to perceive time differently from novices. The current study thus examined perceptions of time as a function of domain expertise. Specifically, individuals with high or low levels of knowledge of American football made judgements of duration for briefly presented words that were unrelated to football (e.g., rooster), football specific (e.g., touchdown), or ambiguous (e.g., huddle). Results showed that high-knowledge individuals judged football-specific words as having been presented for a longer duration than unrelated or ambiguous words. In contrast, low-knowledge participants exhibited no systematic differences in judgements of duration based on the type of word presented. These findings are discussed within a fluency attribution framework, which suggests that experts' fluent perception of domain-relevant stimuli leads to the subjective impression that time slows down in one's domain of expertise.

Keywords:

• Time perception
• Expertise
• Judged duration

Notes

¹ As discussed later, 27 participants were excluded from the analyses reported. Internal consistency among items for the remaining 117 participants was high (α = .83).

² It should be noted that, as would be expected, participants made shorter JODs for words presented for 46 ms (M = –0.12) than for words presented for 66 ms (M = 0.15), F(1, 115) = 110.92, η² _p = 0.49. As well, duration (46, 66 ms) interacted with item type (control, ambiguous, specific), F(1, 115) = 6.88, η² _p = 0.06. In particular, collapsed across participant knowledge, JODs did not differ by item for the 46-ms presentation duration, F(2, 230) = 1.69, p = .19, η² _p = 0.01. However, for the 66-ms presentation duration, JODs differed by item, F(2, 230) = 14.24, η² _p = 0.11.

³ For completeness we also examined between-group differences in JODs for each item type. These data showed that high-knowledge individuals made longer JODs than low-knowledge individuals for specific, F(1, 115) = 5.94, Cohen's d = 0.45, and ambiguous, F(1, 115) = 3.73, p = .06, Cohen's d = 0.36, items. As well, high-knowledge participants made reliably shorter JODs for control items than did low-knowledge participants, F(1, 115) = 10.73, Cohen's d = 0.61.