Distortions in Time Perception: How the Production Rate of Linguistic Stimuli Influences the Perception of Elapsed Time

Abstract

In this study we examined whether the exposure to speed-altered audio clips of speech-like stimuli can distort systematically the subjective sense of time. Participants listened to stimuli of varying durations and speeds and reproduced their durations. Results revealed that both speed and actual duration influenced the length of reproduced durations. In particular, participants reproduced durations as longer when they listened to fast compared to slow speech-like stimuli of the same actual duration. In addition, the reproduced durations of long stimuli deviated more from their veridical durations compared to those of short stimuli. Notably, a significant interaction indicated that the effect of speed was greater for stimuli of short than of long actual durations. We argue that listening to fast speech-like stimuli speeds up the pacemaker component of the internal clock, leading to overestimation of the actual duration. The implications of these findings for the theories of time perception are discussed.