Different Perceptions of Time Passage Among Older People: A Comparative Study in Terms of Age and Gender

• Main Authors: Mohammad Ali Nazari, Sedigheh Forghani Bonab, Jalil Babapour Kheireddin
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences 2016-04-01
• Series: Sālmand
• Subjects: Gender; Age; Time perception; Elderly
• Online Access: http://salmandj.uswr.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1142-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1
• ISSN: 1735-806X; 1735-806X

Objectives: The perception of time is a fundamental and complicated cognitive skill, which allows us to&nbsp;perceive a series of events and activities and anticipate some events in the future. The passage of time&nbsp;is influenced by different contributions of the brain regions and basic cognitive processes, especially attention&nbsp;and memory. With regard to changes in the mentioned functions in different ages, this research&nbsp;aimed to determine the differences in time perception between young and older people. Methods & Materials: This causal-comparative study included young (20-30 years) and elderly (60-70&nbsp;years) women and men living in Tabriz and Marand cities, Iran. The study samples were recruited via convenient&nbsp;sampling method and comprised 64 individuals who were assigned to 2 groups: young (n=30; 15&nbsp;males and 15 females) and elderly subjects (n=27; 12 males and 15 females). The measurements included&nbsp;mini-mental state examination test, Beck depression inventory, and time reproduction task. At first, the&nbsp;time reproduction task was individually performed for each subject. To prevent fatigue and its impact&nbsp;on time perception, Beck depression inventory and mini-mental state examination test were performed&nbsp;after the time reproduction task. In time reproductiontask, a circle was randomly presented in standard&nbsp;durations of 400, 500, and 600 ms, as short time, andstandard durations of 1800, 2000, and 2200 ms, as&nbsp;long time, successively. In total, 80 trials (40 trials for short times and 40 attempts for long times) were&nbsp;randomly and successively presented. Subjects should hold downthe space key to reproduce similar duration&nbsp;to the stimulus that had been previously presented. The data of all the subjects were analyzed by&nbsp;multivariate analyses test. Results: Our findings showed significant differences between 2 age groups (young and old) with regard to&nbsp;perception variable (P<0.007) in such a way that the older people had shorter reproduction in both short&nbsp;and long time intervals. However, the young people had longer reproduction in short time intervals and&nbsp;shorter reproduction (the time interval of motive existence) in long time intervals. With regard to gender,&nbsp;no significant difference was found between the women and men (P<0.244). Conclusion: Research findings indicate that age affects time perception so that perceived time in the elderly&nbsp;people is shorter than the real physical time. Our findings also showed that if sources pay less attention&nbsp;to the passage of time or the memory capacity declines, the time estimation will be less. Based&nbsp;on cognitive changes in old age, the cognitive abilities of older people were found to decrease with&nbsp;increasing age. As the accurate processing of time intervals relates to memory capacity and attention,&nbsp;the changes in any cognitive process could affect the differences in the perception of time. Probably due&nbsp;to these factors, the reproduction of time in the older people shortens.