Abstract: The purpose of the study was to explore how preschoolers estimated timeduration and their (if any) strategies. A panda figure was shown on thecomputer screen with different time intervals of 2, 4, 6, and 8 seconds res-pectively in random order. The subject was asked to reproduce the same timeintervals corresponded with the presentation of the panda by pressing a keyevery time. The preschoolers with the age of 5 and 6 were investigated bybeing assigned to three experimatal conditions. The results indicated that thepreschoolers could distinguish the variations of simple time duration withinseveral seconds from one another; The duration with 4 seconds were estimatedmore aaccurately than the others under the condition of no reference of theclicked sound; The duration with 6 seconds were estimated by the 5-yr-oldsaccurately under the condition of the reference of the clicked sound; The find-ing also convinced that the time references could be approached by the chil-dren as early as 5 years of age who would potentially regard the time as aquantitative dimension by being counted.

Key words: preschoolers, duration, estimation