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Updated: Jul 16, 2026

Eye Movements in Visual Duration Perception: Disentangling Stimulus from Time in Predecisional Processes
Published on: January 19, 2024
Visual onset expands subjective time
Ryota Kanai1, Masataka Watanabe
1University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. kanair@caltech.edu
Abstract:
We report a distortion of subjective time perception in which the duration of a first interval is perceived to be longer than the succeeding interval of the same duration. The amount of time expansion depends on the onset type defining the first interval. When a stimulus appears abruptly, its duration is perceived to be longer than when it appears following a stationary array. The difference in the processing time for the stimulus onset and motion onset, measured as reaction times, agrees with the difference in time expansion. Our results suggest that initial transient responses for a visual onset serve as a temporal marker for time estimation, and a systematic change in the processing time for onsets affects perceived time.
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