Duration perception in peripheral vision: Underestimation increases with greater stimuli eccentricity.

Abstract

Duration perception plays a fundamental role in our daily visual activities; however, it can be easily distorted, even in the retinal location. While this topic has been extensively investigated in central vision, similar exploration in peripheral vision is still at an early stage. To investigate the influence of eccentricity, a commonly used indicator for quantifying retinal location, on duration perception in peripheral vision, we conducted two psychophysical experiments. In Experiment 1, we observed that the retinal location influenced the Point of Subjective Equality (PSE) but not the Weber Fraction (WF) of stimuli appearing at eccentricities ranging from 30° to 70°. Except at 30°, the PSEs were significantly longer than 416.7 ms (25 frames), which was the duration of standard stimuli. This suggested that participants underestimated duration, and this underestimation increased with greater distance from the central fixation point on the retina. To eliminate the potential interference of the central task used in Experiment 1, we conducted a supplementary experiment (Experiment 2) that demonstrated that this central task did not change the underestimation (PSE) but did influence the sensitivity (WF) at an eccentricity of 50°. In summary, our findings revealed a compressive effect of eccentricity on duration perception in peripheral vision: as stimuli appeared more peripheral on the retina, there was an increasing underestimation of subjective duration. Reasons and survival advantages of this underestimation are discussed. Findings provide new insight on duration perception in peripheral vision, highlighting an expanding compressive underestimation effect with greater eccentricity.