The saccade-induced temporal attentional gradient: Duration compression of the post-saccadic second event

Abstract

Rapid eye movements can distort our perception of time, as evidenced by the phenomenon of Chronostasis, where the first event following a saccade appears to last longer than it actually does. Despite extensive research on this phenomenon, the effect of saccades on sequential post-saccadic events, beyond the first one, has never been investigated. To address this, in the present study we compared the subjective estimates of the time of first and second post-saccadic events (with fixation conditions as controls). We found saccadic eye movements not only to affect the perceived duration of the first post-saccadic event (Chronostasis), but also that of the second event. Specifically, when the second event immediately following the first event, it was subjectively compressed. When the second event was used as the (constant) reference interval, Chronostasis was enhanced. Remarkably, the compression effect persisted even when potential "attentional-blink"-induced processes, that might affect timing at the transition from the first to the second event, were eliminated. To explain our findings, we propose that saccades induce a transient temporal attentional gradient that results in an overestimation of the first and an underestimation of the second interval when the two intervals are temporally (near-) contiguous.