Unfolding event structure distorts subjective time

Our experience of time is often distorted in striking ways. Although prior work has shown that boundaries between events can shape temporal perception and memory, less is known about whether, or how, the structure within an event can affect our experience of time as it unfolds. In this study, we asked whether an event's internal structure (i.e., its beginning, middle, and end) systematically biases representations of duration. Across four experiments, participants listened to sequences of tones and either reproduced or judged their durations. We consistently found robust and systematic biases in subjective time: Beginnings were compressed, endings were expanded, and subjective time lengthened progressively over the course of the sequence. These results reveal a distortion in temporal experience that arises not from the transitions between events, but from the way we parse and organize time within them.