title: Effects of chronic video game use on time perception: differences between sub- and multi-second intervals.
abstract: Even though video game players frequently report losing track of time while playing, few studies have addressed whether there are long-lasting effects of such activity on time perception. We compared the performance of chronic and occasional video game players in sub- and multi-second time perception tasks. Temporal Discrimination and Temporal Bisection tasks, in the range of 100 to 1,000 milliseconds, and Time estimation and Time production tasks, in the range of 5 to 60 seconds, were used to assess sub- and multi-second time perceptions, respectively. Chronic video game players performed significantly better than occasional players on sub-second tasks, but no group difference was found for the multi-second tasks used. Sub- and multi-second time perceptions are associated to different underlying systems: automatic and cognitive controlled for sub- and multi-second tasks, respectively. We argue that video game use seems to induce more efficient implicit, rather than cognitive controlled, processing of time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychobiology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. thiagorivero@gmail.com
authors.forename: Thiago Strahler
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Rivero
authors.forename: Priscila
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Covre
authors.forename: Marcelo Bussotti
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Reyes
authors.forename: Orlando Francisco Amodeo
authors.initials: OF
authors.lastname: Bueno
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D018910:Video Games