Perceiving Numbers Affects the Subjective Temporal Midpoint

Abstract

Temporal experience can be modulated by several environmental factors. There is increasing evidence that numerical quantity may also influence temporal processes. Here, it is shown that merely looking at numbers causes a bias in a time-bisection task that depends on its magnitude. In the first experiment, a group of healthy subjects was submitted to a time-bisection task in which numerical cues were blocked (blocked design). In the second experiment, a new group of participants performed a time-bisection task in which the previous numbers were all randomly arranged in the same block (intermingled design). Results show that temporal performance is biased when numbers of different magnitude are arranged in an intermingled design. These findings argue for a functional interaction between time and numbers, depending on the implicit extrapolation of the size difference between the displayed numbers rather than on the numerical size itself.