Feel 10 seconds.
Can you hit 10, 3 and 20 seconds without looking at a clock, and then keep a beat of one tap per second?
Original study
- Wearden, J. H. (1991). Do humans possess an internal clock with scalar timing properties? Learning and Motivation, 22(1–2), 59–83. Source
- Gibbon, J. (1977). Scalar expectancy theory and Weber's law in animal timing. Psychological Review, 84(3), 279–325. Source
- Grondin, S., Ouellet, B., & Roussel, M.-È. (2004). Benefits and limits of explicit counting for discriminating temporal intervals. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58(1), 1–12. Source
- Rattat, A.-C., & Droit-Volet, S. (2012). What is the best and easiest method of preventing counting in different temporal tasks? Behavior Research Methods, 44(1), 67–80. Source
- Lejeune, H., & Wearden, J. H. (2009). Vierordt's The Experimental Study of the Time Sense (1868) and its legacy. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 21(6), 941–960. Source
- Glasauer, S., & Shi, Z. (2021). The origin of Vierordt's law: The experimental protocol matters. PsyCh Journal, 10(5), 732–741. Source
- Repp, B. H. (2005). Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of the tapping literature. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12(6), 969–992. Source
- Wing, A. M., & Kristofferson, A. B. (1973). Response delays and the timing of discrete motor responses. Perception & Psychophysics, 14(1), 5–12. Source
- Repp, B. H., & Doggett, R. (2007). Tapping to a very slow beat: A comparison of musicians and nonmusicians. Music Perception, 24(4), 367–376. Source
Our adaptation
A single-trial online adaptation of Wearden's (1991) time production task. The participant presses start and presses again when they think the target duration has elapsed; there is no timer, progress bar or rhythmic animation on screen, and time is measured with performance.now(). Durations of 10, 3 and 20 seconds are produced in that order, each followed by the question 'did you count or just feel it?'; round 4 asks for 10 taps at one per second.
Differences from the original study
- Each duration is produced once and no feedback is given; laboratory studies use dozens of trials, often with feedback.
- Counting is not prevented; it is only separated by the participant's self-report.
- The crowd coefficient of variation is between people; it is only roughly comparable with Wearden's within-person values.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
s | number | Round 1: duration produced for the 10-second target (seconds). |
counted | 0 | 1 | Whether the participant reported counting in round 1 (1 = counted, 0 = felt). |
s3 | number | Round 2: duration produced for the 3-second target (seconds). |
counted3 | 0 | 1 | Whether the participant reported counting in round 2. |
s20 | number | Round 3: duration produced for the 20-second target (seconds). |
counted20 | 0 | 1 | Whether the participant reported counting in round 3. |
tap | number | Round 4: mean interval between 10 taps (ms; target 1000). |
tap_cv | number | Round 4: coefficient of variation of the tap intervals (SD / mean). |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
The server accepts a round-1 duration between 0.3 and 120 seconds and requires the counting report. The extra rounds are measured in the browser. We recommend setting aside productions shorter than 0.2 times or longer than 3 times the target (this is our recommendation and has not been applied to the data).
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
Scoring
Leaderboard score: the mean absolute percentage deviation from target across four measures (the 10, 3 and 20-second productions and the deviation of the mean tap interval from 1000 ms); lower is better.
Leaderboard measure: average deviation (lower is better). The play_score column in the open data is this score for the first play.
Version notes
- October 2026
This experiment started storing the play mode (free, daily, challenge, race, session) with the answer; the mode column is empty for earlier answers.
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.