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Various aspects of psychological time, such as time perspective and time perception, have been studied separately. In the present research, we aimed to integrate these two approaches by examining the link between time perspective and time perception, conceptualized as the subjective passage of time and duration estimation. We also examined the role of executive control in reducing the biases related to psychological time and controlled for neuroticism, a key personality correlate of subjective passage of time. We found that individuals with a less balanced time perspective were less accurate in duration estimation in the range of seconds and that they reported a faster subjective passage of past time intervals. Moreover, a less balanced time perspective was associated with higher levels of neuroticism. Finally, we identified an interaction between a balanced time perspective and executive control in time perception. A less accurate time estimation was more pronounced at lower levels of executive control and of balanced time perspective. The results provide new insight into psychological time.

Only a few studies have investigated the sense of time in experienced meditators. In the current case–control study, we investigated whether 20 practitioners in transcendental meditation (TM) showed differences in the perception of time as compared to 20 matched controls. Perception of time was assessed with a battery of psychophysical tasks including duration reproduction and time estimation tasks in the milliseconds-to-minutes range as well as with psychometric instruments related to subjective time and assessments concerning the subjective passage of time. Attentional capacities were measured with the Attention Network Test. Trait-mindfulness was assessed with the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory. Results indicate that the TM meditators performed more consistently in the duration reproduction tasks in the multiple seconds' range and responded more accurately in the time estimation tasks in the minutes' range as well as in the duration discrimination task than controls. Self-rated mindfulness was more pronounced in meditators, while attentional capacities did not differ. In conclusion, experts in TM performed more accurately in psychophysical time perception tasks and had higher mindfulness than non-meditating controls. Whether these differences are causally related to the practice of meditation should be investigated in future studies.

The objective of this correlational study was to investigate how dispositional mindfulness is related to the experience of time as operationalized by the assessment of the time perspectives, impulsiveness, and duration judgment tasks. A sample of students (N = 63) completed self-report measures of mindfulness (FMI, CHIME), the time perspectives (ZTPI), impulsiveness (BIS), conducted psychophysical tasks of (a) auditory duration discrimination in the milliseconds range, (b) visual duration reproduction in the multiple-second range, and performed an attention task, the Attention Network Test. Being more mindful in daily life was related to less impulsiveness, better emotional handling of the past, and a more pronounced future perspective. Mindfulness was also related to more accurate timing in the milliseconds and multiple-seconds range but not to attentional control. These findings suggest a close association between dispositional mindfulness with the temporal organization of behaviour and the perception of time.

The experience of the present moment is characterized by an integrative mechanism that fuses successive events into a unitary phenomenological experience with a temporal limit of about 3 s. We hypothesized that proficiency of mindfulness expands the ability to stabilize an ambiguous percept in a bistable image paradigm using the Necker Cube, and that this effect is associated with individual differences in the level of mindfulness. Expanded duration of nowness as indicated by the ability to stabilize a bistable image stimulus for a longer period of time may improve cognitive resources and thus be of practical interest. In a sample of n = 38 meditators and n = 38 non-meditators, meditators showed longer duration of subjective nowness. This effect was associated with individual mindfulness levels. It is concluded that the subjective now can be longer for meditators than for non-meditators, and individual levels of mindfulness may convey this effect.

Individual differences in personality traits such as impulsivity and trait anger as well as environmental variables have an impact on aggressiveness. We tested a model incorporating the related variables of impulsiveness, trait anger, and aggression and incorporated the possible mediating influences of leisure-time activities. Regression analyses of data from 1129 pre-adolescents and 1093 adolescents (55.4% females) from a study evaluating the Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire (AQ; Santisteban, Alvarado, & Recio, 2007) showed a relation between impulsiveness (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale) and aggression (AQ). Trait anger (Spielberger’s State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory), the time spent watching TV and playing video games, and the time spent doing homework (all related to impulsiveness) also are related to physical, as well as verbal aggression (with low to moderate coefficients). Multiple mediation analyses confirm that media violence exposure and homework, respectively, can have aggravating and attenuating effects on self-reported aggression. These results provide key variables for longitudinal studies which could reveal the causal nature of the results found with our cross-sectional design.