Abstract

Subject: the study is dedicated to a retrospective assessment of time intervals. Relevance: The theory of contextual change states that both attention and long-term memory are involved in estimating the length of past time intervals. However, the same manipulations on the test subjects under experimental conditions can lead to opposite effects. The probe task can either consume the resource of attention or create more short memorable events. The former should lead to a decrease in the interval estimate, and the latter to an increase. Scientific novelty: The predictions of this model have not been confirmed in the metaanalysis by its author, as well as in several studies with long (9-58 min) intervals. Methods: We conducted an experiment (N = 92) trying to establish the role of the resource of attention and long-term memory in the assessment of long time intervals. The results of the study show the assessment of time has no relationship with the cognitive load, or with the number of events remembered. However, a posteriori analysis of the data was carried out, inspired by the theory of metacognitive evaluation of the passage of time, first published in 2022. The results of a posteriori analysis showed the existence of a relationship between the estimated time and the discrepancy between the remembered events and the number of events perceived by the subjects (metacognitive component). Conclusions: based on this data, a metacognitive time estimation model is put forward and further studies are proposed to verify it.