Is it cheating to count?

No. Counting is one of the ways people keep time, and the test doesn't try to stop it. If you'd like a harder test of your inner sense, try a run while saying something else under your breath, which stops you counting.

How is my score worked out?

In Target and Reproduce, each round's difference is the length you made minus the real one. Your score is the average of those differences without their sign, in milliseconds, so lower is better. In Compare, it is how many of the ten pairs you got right.

What does leaning long or short mean?

It is the average of your differences with their sign kept, as a share of each length. Leaning 8% long means your stops came, on average, 8% after the real length. A lean near zero means your misses fell on both sides.

Why does the Reproduce light change length each time?

So you can't learn one length and repeat it. Each run picks five different lengths, with a little random extra on each, and the page scores you against how long the light really stayed on, measured from the screen frames it was drawn on.

Is this a medical test?

No. It is a game that shows how your sense of time behaves on the day. It cannot diagnose anything, and a slow device or a noisy room will move your result.

Where are my results saved?

Only in this browser, in its local storage: the last 20 runs of each mode. Nothing is sent to HourLife, and clearing your browser's site data or pressing Clear removes them.

Games
Brain tests
Time Perception Test

Time perception test

How long is three seconds when there's nothing to count with? Hold a target, copy a length you watched, or pick the longer of two lights. Nothing on screen keeps time for you.

Play full screen Your results

2 minutes for a run of any mode
Three modes target, reproduce and compare
No account your scores stay in this browser

Lengths are measured from the frames the screen drew and your presses from the browser's own clock. A busy device can still add a little.

Your results

No runs yet. Take the test above and your scores appear here.

Kept in this browser only: your last 20 runs of each mode. Nothing is sent to HourLife.

How it works

Pick a mode
Target names a length from one and a half to ten seconds for you to hold. Reproduce shows a light for a few seconds and asks you to make the same length. Compare shows two lights and asks which stayed on longer.
Time it in your head
Tap to start and tap to stop. There is no clock and no moving bar while you time, so the only thing keeping count is you. Counting under your breath is allowed.
See which way you lean
Target and Reproduce score the average difference from the real length, in milliseconds, and tell you whether you tend to run long or short. Compare scores how many of ten pairs you got right as the two lights get closer.

Why time feels stretchy

There is no single organ for time. The brain builds a sense of duration out of attention and memory, which is why a wait feels long when you watch it and short when you're busy, and why a stressful moment can seem to slow down.

Two patterns show up again and again in timing studies. The first is that errors grow with the length: being off by a tenth of a second is easy at one second and hard to avoid at ten, because the spread of guesses scales with the time being judged. The second, known as Vierordt's law, is a pull towards the middle: short lengths tend to be held too long and long ones cut short.

That is why your Target and Reproduce results show which way you lean as well as how far off you were. Compare works the same idea from the other side. Telling 1.5 seconds from 1 second is easy; telling 1.06 from 1 second is hard for most people.

Sources: Gibbon, Scalar expectancy theory and Weber's law in animal timing, Psychological Review 84(3) (1977); Lejeune & Wearden, Vierordt's The Experimental Study of the Time Sense (1868) and its legacy, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 21(6) (2009).

Questions

Is it cheating to count?

No. Counting is one of the ways people keep time, and the test doesn't try to stop it. If you'd like a harder test of your inner sense, try a run while saying something else under your breath, which stops you counting.
How is my score worked out?

In Target and Reproduce, each round's difference is the length you made minus the real one. Your score is the average of those differences without their sign, in milliseconds, so lower is better. In Compare, it is how many of the ten pairs you got right.
What does leaning long or short mean?

It is the average of your differences with their sign kept, as a share of each length. Leaning 8% long means your stops came, on average, 8% after the real length. A lean near zero means your misses fell on both sides.
Why does the Reproduce light change length each time?

So you can't learn one length and repeat it. Each run picks five different lengths, with a little random extra on each, and the page scores you against how long the light really stayed on, measured from the screen frames it was drawn on.
Is this a medical test?

No. It is a game that shows how your sense of time behaves on the day. It cannot diagnose anything, and a slow device or a noisy room will move your result.
Where are my results saved?

Only in this browser, in its local storage: the last 20 runs of each mode. Nothing is sent to HourLife, and clearing your browser's site data or pressing Clear removes them.