Diurnal rhythm of temporal reproduction in the visual field

ABSTRACT

The perception of short-term temporal intervals has been suggested to be modulated by the circadian clock, yet systematic studies investigating this relationship are scarce. In this study, we examined the diurnal variations in temporal reproduction around 2–3 seconds with different stimulus eccentricities. Eighteen female participants completed a visual temporal reproduction task at nine time points throughout the day. The results showed significant interactions between clock time and duration, implying diurnal rhythmic variations in temporal reproduction. The reproduction of shorter duration (1500 ms) was overestimated with its highest accuracy in the morning, while the reproduction of longer duration (4500 ms) was underestimated with an approximate 3-hour advancement in acrophase than the shorter duration (1500 ms). No significant eccentricity effects were observed, suggesting homogenous temporal processing across visual fields. The results suggest the presence of diurnal rhythms in the perception of short-term temporal durations, confirming a two-process model of time perception operating within a 2–3 second time window.

KEYWORDS:

• Diurnal rhythm
• temporal perception
• temporal reproduction
• 2-3 second time window
• temporal process

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to Professor Ernst Pöppel for his guidance on the experimental design. We thank all subjects who participated in the experiment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the China Scholarship Council [File No: 201806020189 to Wei Wang and File No: 202108080312 to Xuanzi Yin].