Time Changes with the Embodiment of Another’s Body Posture
2011

Time and Body Posture

Sample size: 50 publication 10 minutes Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Nather Francisco C., Bueno José L. O., Bigand Emmanuel, Droit-Volet Sylvie

Primary Institution: University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

Hypothesis

Does the perception of presentation durations of pictures of different body postures distort as a function of the embodied movement that produced these postures?

Conclusion

The study found that the duration of a picture depicting a body posture requiring more movement was judged to be longer than that of a posture requiring less movement.

Supporting Evidence

  • The duration was judged longer for the posture requiring more movement than for the posture requiring less movement.
  • The magnitude of this overestimation was greater for short durations than for longer durations.
  • Participants rated the more-movement posture as more arousing than the less-movement posture.

Takeaway

When people see pictures of bodies in different poses, they think the ones that look like they are moving take longer to look at than the ones that look still.

Methodology

Participants performed a temporal bisection task with two ranges of standard durations (0.4/1.6 s and 2/8 s) to judge the presentation duration of pictures of body postures.

Limitations

The effect of body posture on time perception was not significant for longer durations (2/8 s).

Participant Demographics

50 students (22 men and 28 women, mean age 21.90 years) from São Paulo University.

Statistical Information

P-Value

p=0.001

Statistical Significance

p<0.05

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1371/journal.pone.0019818

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