December 22, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



843 



the jelly as that of the frog. The eggs vary 

 in size, but on the average are about 1 mm. in 

 diameter. 



The fish continued to thrive, although feed- 

 ing perhaps less ravenously, and was in per- 

 fect condition some five weeks later when I 

 left the laboratory. About half the eggs were 

 preserved in formalin, and, excepting the few 

 kept by the writer, were deposited in the mu- 

 seum of the laboratory at Beaufort. 



These observations were made at the labo- 

 ratory of the United States Bureau of Fish- 

 eries of Beaufort, N. C. For permission to 

 make use of the excellent facilities there, I 

 am indebted to the Commissioner, Hon. George 

 M. Bowers. 



E. W. GUDGER. 



State Normal College, 



Greexsboro, N. C, 



October 7, 1905. 



SEX DIFFERENCES IN THE ESTIMATION OF TIME. 



In volume 19, pages 707-708, of this jour- 

 nal Professor Robert MacDougall published 

 an account of some experiments on the ' time 

 sense ' of men and women which seemed to 

 indicate certain important sex differences. As 

 he states, however, ' the noting of these sex 

 differences was incidental to the primary pur- 

 pose of the test, and attention is called to 

 them here in order that observations on the 

 part of others may be brought into comparison 

 with the results presented by this group of 

 persons.' 



Since MacDougall's results were obtained 

 by the examination of only fifteen persons of 

 each sex, further investigation of the subject 

 is evidently important. We have, therefore, 

 carried out experiments along similar lines 

 with hundreds of subjects for the purpose of 

 ascertaining the significance of sex, age and 

 physiological rhythms in the estimation of 

 time. In the present report we shall consider 

 only the relation of sex to time judgments.^ 



The subjects were required to judge the 

 length of each of four intervals, 18, 36, 72 

 and 108 seconds, under four different condi- 



^A detailed account of the investigation is in 

 process of publication in volume 2 of the Harvard 

 Psychological Studies. 



tions, which are designated in the table as 

 idleness, estimating, reading and writing. 

 During the idleness intervals the subject 

 waited passively for the elapsing of the time; 

 during estimaiing he made use of the method 

 of his own selection by which he could best 

 judge of the length of the period; during 

 reading he listened while the experimenter 

 read, and during writing he wrote from the 

 dictation of the experimenter. 



For comparison of the sexes groups of 251 

 males, from seventeen to twenty-three years 

 old, and 274 females, from seventeen to twenty 

 years old, were examined. In the accompany- 

 ing table we present the means, mean varia- 

 bilities and relative variabilities of each sex 

 group for each interval and filling. 



Summarily stated our investigation indi- 

 cates the following sex differences: 



1. The females were much less accurate than 

 males in the estimation of the intervals under 

 consideration. The range of the male judg- 

 ments was from 1 to 300 seconds, that of the 

 female from 1 to 400 seconds. 



2. The females greatly overestimate the in- 

 tervals in most cases, whereas the males almost 

 invariably underestimate them. The length 

 of the second itself is usually much shorter in 

 the judgment of the female than in that of 

 the male. 



