Perceived Duration: The Interplay of Top-Down Attention and Task-Relevant Information.

Perception of time is susceptible to distortions; among other factors, it has been suggested that the perceived duration of a stimulus is affected by the observer's expectations. It has been hypothesized that the duration of an oddball stimulus is overestimated because it is unexpected, whereas repeated stimuli have a shorter perceived duration because they are expected. However, recent findings suggest instead that fulfilled expectations about a stimulus elicit an increase in perceived duration, and that the oddball effect occurs because the oddball is a target stimulus, not because it is unexpected.

Transference effects of prior non-contingent reinforcement on the acquisition of temporal control on fixed-interval schedules.

In two experiments we examined the influence of response and time factors on the speed of acquisition of temporal control on FI schedules. In Experiment 1, prior exposure to FT accelerated the development of temporal control on FI schedules of the same temporal value. It was also found that the slower acquisition on FI with prior RT was similar to that of rats with prior standard training.

Effects of reinforcement history on response rate and response pattern in periodic reinforcement.

Several researchers have suggested that conditioning history may have long-term effects on fixed-interval performances of rats. To test this idea and to identify possible factors involved in temporal control development, groups of rats initially were exposed to different reinforcement schedules: continuous, fixed-time, and random-interval. Afterwards, half of the rats in each group were studied on a fixed-interval 30-s schedule of reinforcement and the other half on a fixed-interval 90-s schedule of reinforcement.