The subjective size of visual stimuli affects the perceived duration of their presentation

The perception of time spent looking at a stimulus is lengthened or shortened when its physical attributes, such as area, differ from those of a comparison stimulus. We measured the perceived presentation duration of a visual object whose apparent area was altered by the Ebbinghaus illusion while its physical size remained invariant, so that a central circle surrounded by larger inducers appeared smaller than a same-size central circle surrounded by smaller inducers. The results showed that the perceived duration of presentation for apparently larger circles was longer than that of apparently smaller circles, although the actual area remained invariant across all circles. We concluded that the time perception process receives input from later visual processing.