Why does the first second seem longer when you suddenly look at a clock?

Question

Don’t even know should I flair this as physics or biology lol

In: 1239

Answer 1

It’s a fluke in how your vision works.

Basically when your eyes move, you sort of, go temporarily blind. Not in a true sense, but you lose the ability to make out details. You can really only pick up shapes and movement (which is an evolutionary trait).

When your eyes stop, it takes a moment (fraction of a second) for your brain to register new details, so you see a kind of “still image” for that fraction of a second.

Normally you don’t even notice it, but clocks point it out, since they have a hand that moves every second, you notice it.

Vsauce has a great video on it, called Stopped Clock Illusion.