{
  "abstract": "People lose track of time while scrolling, but real feeds confound novelty, reward, social signals, and self-paced control. We asked whether a scrolling-like picture stream, advanced at the viewer's own pace, compresses subjective time on its own. Twenty-three adults (10 female; age M = 27.0 years, SD = 4.1, range 22-36) completed three within-participant conditions with EEG and eye tracking. In Scrolling, they advanced through natural photographs by mouse click at their own pace, each picture preceded by a brief fixation interval. In Watching, they passively viewed new photographs with the picture and fixation durations of their own Scrolling block, permuted. In Baseline, a single photograph from the same pool stayed on screen for the matched duration. After each block, participants estimated its elapsed duration. Both sequential-picture conditions were judged far shorter than Baseline (Scrolling 48%, Watching 52%, Baseline 65% of clock time; Scrolling versus Baseline dz = -0.80), a compression carried by the fixation intervals between pictures, which observers barely counted. Scrolling was judged shorter still than Watching (dz = -0.77); the size of this increment varied with sequential context, in a pattern of assimilation toward the preceding estimate. EEG and eye tracking characterized self-paced viewing as a changed anticipatory state, an earlier visual response, and more active visual sampling. The results fit an attention-weighted readout of time: a picture stream and its uncounted intervals draw attention from the clock. Time processing during feed-like viewing is vulnerable to the structure of sequential viewing, independent of content or reward.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "LMU Munich"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "C. Qu"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Zinchenko"
    },
    {
      "name": "S. Chen"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Z. Shi"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/66n95s7gg0wa1.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.07.02.734699",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.02.734699v2.full",
  "id": "66n95s7gg0wa1",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.02.734699v2",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Visual perception and processing mechanisms"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7167721976",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.02.734699v2.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-07-02",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/66n95s7gg0wa1.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:26:08Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.07.02.734699",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.02.734699v2"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The Attentional Thief: Scrolling-Like Picture Streams Compress Subjective Time",
  "title_text": "The Attentional Thief: Scrolling-Like Picture Streams Compress Subjective Time",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:26:08Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/66n95s7gg0wa1",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}