During the last two decades, there has been new interest in introspection about multitasking performance. In this field, subjective timing of one’s own reaction times (introspective RTs) has proven a useful measure to assess introspection. However, whether timing our own cognitive processing makes use of the same timing mechanisms as timing external intervals has been called into question. Here we take a novel approach to this question and build on the previously observed dissociation between the interference of task switching and memory search with a concurrent time production task whereby temporal productions increased with increasing memory set size but were not affected by switch costs. We tested whether a similar dissociation could be observed in this paradigm when participants provide introspective RTs instead of concurrent temporal productions. The results showed no such dissociation as switch costs and the effect of memory set size on RTs were both reflected in introspective RTs. These findings indicate that the underlying timing mechanisms differ between temporal productions and introspective RTs in this multitasking context, and that introspective RTs are still strikingly accurate estimates of objective RTs.

在过去的二十年里，人们对多任务处理性能的自省产生了新的兴趣。在这一领域，个人反应时间的主观计时（内省 RT）已被证明是评估内省的有用措施。然而，我们自己的认知处理时间是否使用与外部时间间隔相同的时间机制已经受到质疑。在这里，我们对这个问题采取了一种新颖的方法，并建立在先前观察到的任务切换干扰和内存搜索与并发时间生产任务之间的分离之上，即时间生产随着内存集大小的增加而增加，但不受切换成本的影响。我们测试了当参与者提供内省 RTs 而不是同时的时间生产时，在这种范式中是否可以观察到类似的分离。结果显示没有这种分离，因为转换成本和内存集大小对 RT 的影响都反映在内省 RT 中。这些发现表明，在这种多任务处理的情况下，时间生产和内省 RT 之间的潜在时间机制不同，并且内省 RT 仍然是对客观 RT 的惊人准确估计。