Eli5 I don’t know how many people experience this, but when you suddenly watch a clock, and watch that one tick of the “second” hand, is it just me or does it actually take longer than a second is supposed to? Why?

Question

Why does this happen? It usually seems to pause for a bit and then continue. Can someone please explain why?

In: Other

Answer 1

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Answer 2

It’s called [chronostasis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis). Essentially your eye movement would normally create an incomprehensible blurry image. Your brain drops this blurry image and then covers up the gap with an image of the next thing you look at, the second hand on your clock in this case.

Answer 3

This is called [Chronostasis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis).

From my understanding, it happens when your eyes move on to a new “target” your brain fills the blur in between your eyes moving with whatever you happen to be looking at by the end. Thus, it feels like the clock stops just as you’re looking at it because your brain just repeated the new image to fill the “blanks”.

Answer 4

When the eye moves quickly (called saccade), the brain pays attention to the initial and final image, ignoring what is between. Instead it fills the gap of the eye movement with the final image, making it last a little longer.