Rate how long each clock tick feels. Compare what happens when you shift your gaze versus when you're already watching.
Ready to begin the experiment?
You will complete 8 trials: 4 saccade trials (shift gaze to clock) and 4 control trials (already watching clock). After each trial, rate how long the first tick felt.
Fixate on the + and wait for the cue...
The stopped clock illusion (chronostasis) occurs when you shift your gaze to a clock and the second hand appears to freeze momentarily before starting to move again. That first tick seems to last longer than subsequent ticks.
This happens because your brain backdates visual information to fill in the gap created during the eye movement (saccade). During a saccade, you are effectively blind for about 50-100ms, but you never notice this gap because your brain fills it with the first image you see after the movement.
In saccade trials, you fixate on the + and then shift your gaze to the clock when cued. The first tick you see should feel longer than normal.
In control trials, you are already watching the clock, so there is no saccade-induced time distortion. The ticks should feel more uniform in duration.
Chronostasis reveals that our conscious experience of the present is partially constructed after the fact. The brain does not simply relay sensory information as it arrives; it actively edits and confabulates to create a seamless narrative of experience.
We often assume consciousness is a direct window onto the present moment. Instead, what we experience as "now" may be a post-produced reconstruction, smoothed and filled in to hide gaps in our sensory processing.