An Experimental Study On Time Perception of Five-To-Eight-Year-Old Children

How does the time perception of children develop? What features mark the process of development? And what major stages does the development go through? This is one of the subjects that developmental psychology needs to study. Foreign psychologists like E. J. Smythe, S. Goldstone and others5,6 studied both the active and passive time estimate by seconds of children of the six-to-fourteen age bracket. They held that the estimate of short time intervals by children of the eight-to-four teen age bracket is relatively correct; their time concepts gradually tend to stablize, and they can use related reference signals to help correct mistakes. In fact, they are not much different from young adults. In comparison, children of the six-to-seven age group cannot judge time accurately. Their judgement is varied and unstable, and their estimate of the 30" interval tends to be on the short side. Moreover, they are unable to correct their mistakes in estimation by means of time-related reference signals. The researchers...