EFFECTS OF EVENT STRUCTURE ON RETROSPECTIVE DURATION JUDGMENTS

Two experiments examined whether varying degrees of event coherence in fluence the remembering of an event's actual duration. Relying on musi cal compositions (Experiment 1) or filmed narratives (Experiment 2) as experimental stimuli, the underlying hierarchy of information within events (i.e., melodic intervals or story elements) was either attentio nally highlighted or obscured by placing a varying number of accents ( i.e., prolonged notes or commercial breaks) at locations that either c oincided or conflicted with grammatical phrase boundaries. When subjec ts were unexpectedly asked to judge the actual duration of events, thr ough a reproduction (Experiment I) or verbal estimation (Experiment 2) task, duration estimates became more accurate and less variable when the pattern of accentuation increasingly outlined the events' nested r elationships. Conversely, when the events' organization was increasing ly obscured through accentuation, time judgments not only became less accurate and more variable, but were consistently overestimated. These findings support a theoretical framework emphasizing the effects of e vent structure on attending and remembering activities.