Limits on introspection: distorted subjective time during the dual-task bottleneck.
Which cognitive processes are accessible to conscious report? To study the limits of conscious reportability, we designed a novel method of quantified introspection, in which subjects were asked, after each trial of a standard cognitive task, to estimate the time spent completing the task. We then applied classical mental-chronometry techniques, such as the additive-factors method, to analyze these introspective estimates of response time. We demonstrate that introspective response time can be a sensitive measure, tightly correlated with objective response time in a single-task context. In a psychological-refractory-period task, however, the objective processing delay resulting from interference by a second concurrent task is totally absent from introspective estimates. These results suggest that introspective estimates of time spent on a task tightly correlate with the period of availability of central processing resources.
Corallo
Guido
G
Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory, Physics Department, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Sackur
Jérôme
J
Dehaene
Stanislas
S
Sigman
Mariano
M
D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D003243:Consciousness; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D012033:Refractory Period, Psychological; D013998:Time Perception; D055815:Young Adult