Julgamento de passagem de tempo e estresse

Abstract

The subjective perception of time is related to an internal biological clock that provides a temporal estimation, which is influenced by cognitive (attention and memory) and emotional processes. Recently, the perception of the passage of time has begun to be investigated in daily situations. These studies refer to this perception as the passage of time judgment (PoTJ). PoTJ is investigated using a method called Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM). The current study aimed to investigate the effect of stress on the PoTJ for adults, through the ESM. To achieve this, the participants (stressed group and nonstressed group) received six daily messages during five consecutive days. Each message was composed of four questions to evaluate the PoTJ, the emotional state, the difficulty of the task and the attention at that moment. The results did not reveal an effect of stress on the PoTJ, and also the emotional state and the attention were not different between the groups. The only significant difference observed between the groups was related to the difficulty of the task. Finally, the multiple regression analysis indicates that the variable "attention" is a predictor of the PoTJ for both groups and that the variable "difficulty of the current task" is also predictive for the group without stress. Thus, the present study contributed to the understanding of mechanisms underlying the PoTJ, identifying the variables that affect it and that are able to predict it.