Perceived Duration of Flickering Numbers

Abstract

Perceiving time is crucial in regulating everyday activities, but its mechanism is unknown. Various effects of visual features on time perception are known; for example, flickering stimuli appear to last longer than their static counterparts or numbers of larger magnitude appear to last longer. The former effect implies that early-level visual processing is involved in time perception, whereas the latter suggests that high-level processing is also involved. In this study, we combined the two effects to explore the relationship between them. Participants reported their perceived duration of flickering or non-flickering digital numbers of various magnitudes using the reproduction method. The results confirmed the effect of the magnitude of numbers but also demonstrated that the effect of visual flicker negated or greatly diminished the former effect. Our findings reveal that the visual information feeds into time perception at two or more processing stages.