The Psychology of Waiting - A Time Perception Perspective Dan Zakay
Time is a crucial factor required for optimal adaptability of living organisms. -Why watches were invented (and not color vision devices)? - Planning of motoric actions. - Planning of actions.
Retrospective Time: Experience without estimate duration. awareness to time Prospective Time: Experience with awareness to time estimate duration.
Simple Complex Geometric Figures
Subjective Time Retrospective (Memory) Prospective (Attention) L H Required Non-temporal Information. Processing Load
Prospective Time Judgments Compete with most tasks, s, because they consume resources of working memory. This assumption is consistent with both views of multiple resources and limited capacity since prospective time utilized resources from a common pool-working memory.
The Attentional Gate Model (Zakay & Block)
Subjective Time (sec.) 10 9 8 10 7 10 6 5 BH Long Duration SL Long Duration Overall Average SL Short Duration BH Short Duration 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 Experimental Phase
Task- Switching Experiment: Mean Reproduction (sec.) in Each Condition Note: Data is from Zakay and Block (2002).
TEMPORAL RELEVANCE (TR) The degree of significance ifi of the time dimension i in a given situation. TEMPORAL UNCERTAINTY (TU) TU = f (amount of existing information about a given target interval) Zakay, 1992
TR low TU high TU low high low high Low temporal awareness Medium temporal awareness high temporal awareness Low level of resources allocation for TIP Moderate level of resources allocation for TIP Intensive level of resources allocation for TIP
In real life situations prospective time is experienced under conditions of time relevance, high hlevel lof temporal uncertainty or free attention (e.g., Boredom).
Prospective Timing is done automatically and is used for Meta Cognitive Controls: - Familiarity Judgments. - Confidence Judgments.
TIMING IN HUMAN COMMUNICATION Q: What is the time? A: 10:30 am Response Interval accepted unaccepted (too fast ; too slow) (Normal, Unnoticed) (Something is Wrong here) t
TIMING IN CAUSALITY JUDGMENT Event A. Event B. Temporal Proximity Within the Causality Window Outside the Causality Window A might be perceived as the cause of B A is not the cause of B
Under Waiting Conditions: TR is high. TU is high. Attention ti is automatically ti allocated for TIP (Prospective timing). Temporal Expectations ti (TE) are evoked automatically. A condition of Late Ending (beyond TE) is created ( Why she/he is not here, yet? ). Duration is felt as much hlonger than the objective clock duration
TIMING IN WAITING SITUATIONS Enter situation Past Experience e Situational a Data a Quit the situation Building a temporal expectation (TE) Temporal expectation acceptable? No Compare With TE Yes > Attention allocation for TIP Duration judgment Tension
WAITING MESSAGES ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- WAIT STATIC DYNAMIC
While waiting i in a supermarket for paying py Waiting duration is perceived as longer when social justice is not kept then when it is kept. Most probably temporal relevance and temporal uncertainty increase when social justice is not kept.
Felt 1050 Duration 1000 950 (sec.) 900 850 800 750 700 650 600 550 500 450 400 Cartoon displayed dspayed Cartoon not displayed + - Noise
ine f people st taying on-l % o 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Impatience (PDJ) Utility of waiting Waiting duration Time (sec) Waiting in Call Centers
Reason to Abandon Fed up waiting (77%) Not urgent (10%) Forced to (4%) 200 Abandonment in Direct-Banking Actual Abandon Time (sec) 70 81 31 Perceived Abandon Time (sec) 164 128 35 Perception Ratio 2.34 Something came 56 53 0.95 up (6%) Expected call- 13 25 19 1.9 back (3%) 1.6 1.1
Empirical Testing of the Model 1. Participants ii had hdto wait ifor 5 or 7 min. 2. Probability of winning a prize increased as a function of waiting i duration 3. Participants were required to rate the importance of the continuation i of waiting ii by clicking on a scale ranging between 1-10. The scale was presented on a computer screen. 4. It was required to rate importance every 3 or 5 sec. and to do so as accurately as possible.
Empirical Testing of the Model (cont.) 5. The total waiting duration was divided to units of 30`s intervals. For each unit the average importance ratings and SD of produced rime intervals (between any two consecutive importance ratings) were calculated for each participant. 6. Average importance was taken as a representation of the utility of waiting. 7. The cost of waiting was considered to be reflected by the SD of produced time intervals. 8. For each 30`s time unit the Benefit/cost fi/ ratio of waiting ii was calculated for each participant as Average importance divided by 1/SD. Thus, Higher utility and low cost yielded higher BC ratios than low utility and high cost (high importance X high SD, and low importance X low SD, respectively).
Empirical Testing of the Model (cont.) 9. Two experimental groups were designed. 10. The probability of winning group, in which this parameter was emphasized. 11. The waiting duration group in which this parameter was emphasized. 12. The experimental manipulations were obtained via the presentation on the computer screen of either the probability or the waiting parameter. Winning probability advancement or waiting duration advancement were primed respectively. The importance rating scale appears in the middle of the screen.
Waiting / Winning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Waiting Importance Scale
Empirical Testing of the Model (cont.) 13. The results yielded the expected functions: BC Ratio A - Winning i probability bilit emphasized B - Waiting duration emphasized Waiting Duration The functions have similar properties p to the empirical function obtained for the waiting in the call center data.
A WAITING EXPERIENCE IN A PHARMACY LOCATED WITHIN A DRUG STORE 1. At the entrance the customer receives a number and the prescription is faxed to the pharmacy. 2. When the customer arrives at the pharmacy he finds a mass of people waiting without well-defined queuing boundaries. 3. A counter indicates the number to be served but it is not always advanced. 4. There is a sign saying that any customer who arrives after his/her number was called will receive service immediately. (In another pharmacy the rule is that anyone who is late must take a new number)
Time Engineering i
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