Time Perception in Suicidal Individuals

Abstract

An attempt was made to further investigate the hypothesis that suicidal individuals perceive time as moving slower than do geriatric and normal patients. Behavioral type estimates of two short and two long time intervals were elicited from serious suicide attempters, geriatric patients and normal hospitalized subjects (N = 15 for each group). It was found that the suicidal Ss overestimated the length of the time intervals to a greater degree than did the other patients. The data suggested that the slowing down of time was more accelerated for the suicidal patients than for the other Ss (i.e., time estimations increased faster for the suicidal Ss as compared to the other groups as interval length increased).