Temporal information processing and basic dimensions of personality: differential effects of psychoticism

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between Eysenckʹs basic dimensions of personality and performance on temporal processing of auditory intervals in the range of milliseconds (i.e. time perception) and seconds (i.e. time estimation). After filling in the short version of a German adaptation of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised, 60 male subjects, ranging in age from 20 to 31 years, were presented with two temporal discrimination tasks. As a measure of performance, 75% difference thresholds in relation to a 50-msec (time perception) and a 1000-msec (time estimation) standard interval were determined. While performance on time perception was found to be unrelated to basic dimensions of personality, analysis of variance and correlational analyses revealed that performance on time estimation was significantly associated with the personality dimension of psychoticism (P). Temporal processing in the range of seconds was much better in high-P than in low-P subjects. This finding is discussed within the frameworks of the attentional-gate model and psychoticism-related differences in latent inhibition.