title: Symmetry Lasts Longer Than Random, but Only for Brief Presentations.
abstract: Previous research has shown that explicit emotional content or physical image properties (e.g., luminance, size, and numerosity) alter subjective duration. Palumbo recently demonstrated that the presence or absence of abstract reflectional symmetry also influenced subjective duration. Here, we explored this phenomenon further by varying the type of symmetry (reflection or rotation) and the objective duration of stimulus presentation (less or more than 1 second). Experiment 1 used a verbal estimation task in which participants estimated the presentation duration of reflection, rotation symmetry, or random square-field patterns. Longer estimates were given for reflectional symmetry images than rotation or random, but only when the image was presented for less than 1 second. There was no difference between rotation and random. These findings were confirmed by a second experiment using a paired-comparison task. This temporal distortion could be because reflection has positive valence or because it is processed efficiently be the visual system. The mechanism remains to be determined. We are relatively sure, however, that reflectional patterns can increase subjective duration in the absence of explicit semantic content, and in the absence of changes in the size, luminance, or numerosity in the images.
authors.affiliation: School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ogden
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK.
authors.forename: Alexis D J
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Makin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK; Department of Psychology, Liverpool Hope University, UK.
authors.forename: Letizia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Palumbo
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bertamini
keywords: arousal; internal clock; subjective duration; symmetry; time