ABSTRACT
Time has always been a fascinating concept. Many great philosophers, physicists, and psychologists have pondered the definition, and the very existence, of time. Is time inside the mind or external to it? Is time a fourth dimension on a space-time continuum? Is time real or just an illusion? The answers to each of these questions, themselves, are worthy of a book (or stack of books). It is easier to agree with other aspects of time, however, for instance, “Lost time is never found again” (Benjamin Franklin, who also said “Time is money”); and “Time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once” (anonymous). Time cannot be repeated, skipped, or replaced, and no commodity is more valuable. How time is allocated may determine the effectiveness of our behaviors; thus, time is a central element of life itself. In this chapter, we present a history of research on the topic of how people allocate time during study, beginning with its roots prior to the cognitive revolution and stopping at key points throughout the psychological literature. In doing so, we aim to answer the question of whether people achieve optimality when allocating the limited time that is available.
