[Effect of the duration of information processing on the estimation of a 1-second duration].

Summary The perception of a brief duration (shorter than 2 sec) depends on the nature of information to be processed during this duration. It was hypothesized that the easier the processing, the more overestimated the duration, since the subject will be more attentive to duration itself. The production of a one-second duration was compared in tasks of naming and reading, the fact that naming a stimulus takes more time, and is more difficult than reading the name of this stimulus being well established. The results supported the hypothesis that the duration produced is shorter (overestimation) in the reading condition than in the naming condition.