The Role of Spontaneous Eye Blinks in Temporal Perception: An Eye Tracking Study

Our interaction with the world depends on our ability to process temporal information, which is a key component of human cognition that directly impacts decision-making, planning, and prediction of events. Visual information plays a crucial role in shaping our subjective perception of time, and even brief interruptions, such as those caused by eye blinks, can disrupt the continuity of our perception and alter how we estimate durations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between spontaneous eye blinks and time perception using a temporal bisection task. In particular, we focus on how blinks preceding stimulus presentation impact the perceived duration of that stimulus. The results of fitting a generalized linear mixed-effects model revealed that blinking can indeed influence the duration estimation. Specifically, the presence of a single blink before the stimulus presentation had a significant effect on subjective time perception; participants were more likely to categorize a duration as shorter compared to when they did not blink. In contrast, two or more blinks before stimulus presentation did not have a significant effect compared to not blinking. This study further elucidates the complex interaction between the momentary suppression of visual input and the perception of time.