| Summary: | The apparent duration of a visual stimulus has been shown to be affected by its speed. For low speeds, apparent duration increases linearly with stimulus speed. This effect has been ascribed to the number of changes that occur within a visual interval. Accordingly, a higher number of changes should produce an increase in apparent duration. In order to test this prediction, we asked subjects to compare the relative duration of a 10 Hz drifting comparison stimulus with a standard stimulus that contained a different number of changes in different sessions. The standard could be static, drifting at 10 Hz or mixed (a combination of variable duration static and drifting intervals). In this last condition the number of changes was intermediate between the static and the continuously drifting stimulus. For all standard durations, the mixed stimulus looked at least as significantly compressed (~20% reduction) as the static one (no changes) relative to the drifting stimulus. We also observed that when the standard was displayed first, it appeared compressed relative to when it was displayed second with a magnitude that depended on standard duration. These results are at odds with a model of time perception that simply reflects the number of temporal features within an interval in determining the perceived passing of time.
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