AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON TIME PERCEPTION OF FWE -TO-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN.

The article reports that foreign psychologists like E. J. Smythe, S. Goldstone and others 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 entire experiment consisted of two parts. In the first part researchers did not provide the testees with a standard measure of time. Pressing the stopwatch twice, researchers indicated to the testees by the clicks the beginning and end of a certain time interval. Then the testees were asked to reproduce the indicated time interval by using the same method.