title: Time perception and time perspective differences between adolescents and adults.
abstract: The present experiment aimed to investigate the differences in time perception and time perspective between subjects representing two developmental stages, namely adolescence and middle adulthood. Twenty Chinese adolescents aged 15-25 and twenty Chinese adults aged 35-55 participated in the study. A time discrimination task and a time reproduction task were implemented to measure the accuracy of their time perception. The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (Short-Form) was adopted to assess their time orientation. It was found that adolescents performed better than adults in both the time discrimination task and the time reproduction task. Adolescents were able to differentiate different time intervals with greater accuracy and reproduce the target duration more precisely. For the time reproduction task, it was also found that adults tended to overestimate the duration of the target stimuli while adolescents were more likely to underestimate it. As regards time perspective, adults were more future-oriented than adolescents, whereas adolescents were more present-oriented than adults. No significant relationship was found between time perspective and time perception.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Electronic address: yfsiu@psy.cuhk.edu.hk.
authors.forename: Nicolson Y F
authors.initials: NY
authors.lastname: Siu
authors.affiliation: Department of Counselling and Psychology, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, 10 Wai Tsui Crescent, Braemar Hill Road, North Point, Hong Kong. Electronic address: heididilam@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Heidi H Y
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.affiliation: Y.M.C.A. of Hong Kong Christian College, Tung Chung, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Electronic address: jacqueline.le@ymcacc.edu.hk.
authors.forename: Jacqueline J Y
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Le
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Raclawickie 14, Lublin 20-950, Poland. Electronic address: aneta.przepiorka@kul.pl.
authors.forename: Aneta M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Przepiorka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Age differences; Time discrimination task; Time perception; Time perspective; Time reproduction task