Our sense of time is altered by our emotions to such an extent that time seems to fly when we are having fun and drags when we are bored. Recent studies using standardized emotional material provide a unique opportunity for understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the effects of emotion on timing and time perception in the milliseconds-to-hours range. We outline how these new findings can be explained within the framework of internal-clock models and describe how emotional arousal and valence (...) interact to produce both increases and decreases in attentional time sharing and clock speed. The study of time and emotion is at a crossroads, and we outline possible examples for future directions. (shrink)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword xi Steven Pinker Acknowledgments xvii Contributors xix Introduction: The Emergence of Evolutionary Psychology xxiii David M. Buss PART I FOUNDATIONS OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY David M. Buss 1 Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology 5 John Tooby and Leda Cosmides 2 Life History Theory and Evolutionary Psychology 68 Hillard S. Kaplan and Steven W. Gangestad 3 Domain Specificity and Intuitive Ontology 96 Pascal Boyer and H. Clark Barrett 4 Methods of Evolutionary Sciences 119 Jeffry A. Simpson and Lorne (...) Campbell 5 Controversial Issues in Evolutionary Psychology 145 Edward H. Hagen PART II SURVIVAL David M. Buss 6 Locating Places 177 Irwin Silverman and Jean Choi 7 Adaptations to Predators and Prey 200 H. Clark Barrett 8 Adaptations to Dangers from Humans 224 Joshua D. Duntley PART III MATING David M. Buss Adaptationism and Human Mating Psychology 255 Donald Symons 9 Fundamentals of Human Mating Strategies 258 David P. Schmitt 10 Physical Attractiveness in Adaptationist Perspective 292 Lawrence S. Sugiyama 11 Adaptations to Ovulation 344 Steven W. Gangestad, Randy Thornhill, and Christine E. Garver-Apgar 12 Female Infidelity and Sperm Competition 372 Todd K. Shackelford, Nicholas Pound, Aaron T. Goetz, and Craig W. LaMunyon 13 Sexual Coercion 394 Neil M. Malamuth, Mark Huppin, and Bryant Paul 14 Commitment, Love, and Mate Retention 419 Lorne Campbell and Bruce J. Ellis PART IV PARENTING AND KINSHIP Martin Daly and Margo Wilson 15 Cooperation and Conflict among Kin 447 Jeffrey A. Kurland and Steven J. C. Gaulin 16 Evolution of Paternal Investment 483 David C. Geary 17 Parental Investment and Parent-Offspring Conflict 506 Catherine Salmon 18 Altruism and Genetic Relatedness 528 Eugene Burnstein 19 Hormones and the Human Family 552 Mark V. Flinn, Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone PART V GROUP LIVING David M. Buss 20 Neurocognitive Adaptations Designed for Social Exchange 584 Leda Cosmides and John Tooby 21 Aggression 628 Anne Campbell 22 Managing Ingroup and Outgroup Relationships 653 Robert Kurzban and Steven Neuberg 23 Dominance, Status, and Social Hierarchies 676 Denise Cummins 24 The Evolution of Language 698 Peter F. MacNeilage and Barbara L. Davis 25 The Evolution of Cognitive Bias 724 Martie G. Haselton, Daniel Nettle, and Paul W. Andrews 26 The Evolution of Morality 747 Dennis Krebs PART VI EVOLUTIONIZING TRADITIONAL DISCIPLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY David M. Buss 27 Evolutionary Cognitive Psychology 776 Peter M. Todd, Ralph Hertwig, and Ulrich Hoffrage 28 Evolutionary Social Psychology 803 Douglas T. Kenrick, Jon K. Maner, and Norman P. Li 29 Evolutionary Developmental Psychology 828 David F. Bjorklund and Carlos Hernández Blasi 30 Evolutionary Personality Psychology 851 Aurelio José Figueredo, Jon A. Sefcek, Geneva Vasquez, Barbara H. Brumbach, James E. King, and W. Jake Jacobs 31 Biological Function and Dysfunction 878 Jerome C. Wakefield 32 Evolutionary Psychology and Mental Health 903 Randolph M. Nesse PART VII APPLICATIONS OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY TO OTHER DISCIPLINES David M. Buss 33 Literature and Evolutionary Psychology 931 Joseph Carroll 34 Evolutionary Psychology and the Law 953 Owen D. Jones Afterword 975 Richard Dawkins Author Index 981 Subject Index 1009. (shrink)

An emotion-based lengthening effect on the perception of durations of emotional pictures has been assumed to result from an arousal-based mechanism, involving the activation of an internal clock system. The aim of this study was to systematically examine the arousal effect on time perception when different discrete emotions were considered. The participants were asked to verbally estimate the duration of emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The pictures varied either in arousal level, i.e., high/low-arousal, for the same (...) discrete emotion (disgust or sadness) or in the depicted emotion, e.g., disgust/fear for pictures matched for arousal (high-arousal). The results systematically revealed a lengthening effect on the perception of the duration of the emotional compared to the neutral pictures and indicated that the magnitude of this effect increased with arousal level. Nevertheless, variations in time perception were observed for one and the same arousal level, with the duration of disgust-inducing pictures (e.g., body mutilation) being judged longer than that of fear-inducing pictures (e.g., snake). These results suggest that arousal is a fundamental mechanism mediating the effect of emotion on time perception. However, the effect cannot be reduced to arousal, since the impact of the content of pictures also plays a critical role. (shrink)