Dynamic construction of subjective time through statistical learning of event structure

The perception of time is elastic, often deviating from physical intervals depending on how experience is structured. Yet, what determines how subjective time is constructed remains debated. Here, we tested whether perceived ongoing time is actively constructed from learned event representations rather than a dedicated internal clock. Using a novel pause-adjustment task across three statistical learning experiments, we measured temporal distortions during continuous listening to structured versus unstructured syllable streams. The presence of event structure systematically warped time: pauses were perceived as longer between pseudowords and shorter within pseudowords. This bidirectional temporal warping emerged online and remained stable across pause durations. Enriching these events with semantic meaning eliminated boundary-related dilation while preserving within-event compression.

Moreover, physiological tracking of event structure, indexed by pupil dynamics, dissociated from the magnitude of temporal warping. These findings show that subjective time is constructed from hierarchical event representations and depends not only on where events are segmented, but also on how they are represented.