Click STOP when you think exactly 10 seconds have passed. Each round adds more distractions — watch how your time perception warps under cognitive load.
Time perception is not a passive process — it requires active attention. The dominant model is the pacemaker-accumulator model (Gibbon 1977; Church 1984): an internal pacemaker emits pulses, an accumulator counts them, and duration is judged by the count. Crucially, an attentional gate controls whether pulses reach the accumulator. Cognitive load closes this gate partially — fewer pulses get through — so subjective time runs slow: you think less time has passed than actually has.
In prospective timing (knowing a duration will be judged — this game), attention is split between the task and timekeeping. Higher cognitive load → less attention on the clock → under-estimation → clicking too early. In retrospective timing (duration judged after the fact), more information processed = longer felt duration. This game uses prospective timing, so increasing distractions should push your click earlier.
Visual distractions compete for spatial attention but leave verbal working memory free for covert counting strategies. Mathematical tasks monopolise the central executive and the phonological loop — both of which are also used for mental counting. The interference is maximal, and time perception degrades most severely.