Chronotype Alignment and Time Perception

NCT07677111 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: HSEARS20260622001
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 240
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

People differ in chronotype - whether they function best in the morning ("larks") or the evening ("owls"). This study asks whether the match or mismatch between a person's chronotype and the time of day at which they are tested changes how they perceive time. Healthy morning-type and evening-type adults at three sites (Aarhus, Denmark; Changzhou, China; and Hong Kong) complete the same battery of perception and cognition tasks twice - once in the early morning (about 08:00) and once late in the evening (about 22:00), in counterbalanced order. The primary outcome is the accuracy (signed bias) of time-perception judgements; the key comparison is the interaction between chronotype and time of day (the "synchrony effect"). Secondary measures include timing precision, the subjective passage of time, sleepiness, mood, colour perception (with and without blue-blocking glasses) and perceptual decision-making. By testing the same protocol across three cultures and latitudes, the study examines whether circadian match/mismatch effects on temporal cognition generalise across populations.

Conditions

Chronotype; Circadian Rhythm; Sleep; Time Perception

Keywords

chronotype; morningness-eveningness; synchrony effect; time perception; temporal cognition; circadian rhythm; time-of-day; duration discrimination; arousal; cross-cultural

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Time-perception bias measured by the two-alternative forced-choice duration-comparison point of subjective equality

  Participants complete a two-alternative forced-choice duration-comparison task. On each trial, they judge whether a comparison interval is shorter or longer than a standard interval. A psychometric function is fitted to each participant's responses to estimate the point of subjective equality, defined as the comparison duration judged longer than the standard on 50% of trials. Time-perception bias is calculated as signed percentage error: ((point of subjective equality - standard duration) / standard duration) × 100. Positive values indicate a point of subjective equality above the standard duration; negative values indicate a point of subjective equality below the standard duration. The primary comparison is the chronotype-by-session-time interaction, testing whether time-perception bias differs between circadian match and mismatch sessions.

  Each of two laboratory sessions, morning about 08:00 and evening about 22:00, completed within about 2 weeks.

Secondary Outcomes (7)

• Temporal precision measured by the two-alternative forced-choice duration-discrimination Weber fraction

  Each of two laboratory sessions, morning about 08:00 and evening about 22:00, completed within about 2 weeks.

• Subjective passage of time measured by a passage-of-time rating scale

  Each of two laboratory sessions, morning about 08:00 and evening about 22:00, completed within about 2 weeks.

• Subjective sleepiness measured by the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale

  Each of two laboratory sessions, morning about 08:00 and evening about 22:00, completed within about 2 weeks.

• Mood measured by the Multidimensional Mood Questionnaire

  Each of two laboratory sessions, morning about 08:00 and evening about 22:00, completed within about 2 weeks.

• Unique-hue settings measured as hue angle in the Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage Colour Appearance Model 2016 (CIECAM16)

  Each of two laboratory sessions, morning about 08:00 and evening about 22:00, completed within about 2 weeks.

Study Arms (2)

Morning-first sequence

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants complete the Morning test session (about 08:00) first, then the Evening test session (about 22:00). Both sessions use the identical perception and cognition battery; session order is counterbalanced across participants.

Behavioral: Morning test session (about 08:00); Behavioral: Evening test session (about 22:00)

Evening-first sequence

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants complete the Evening test session (about 22:00) first, then the Morning test session (about 08:00). Both sessions use the identical perception and cognition battery; session order is counterbalanced across participants.

Behavioral: Morning test session (about 08:00); Behavioral: Evening test session (about 22:00)

Interventions

Morning test session (about 08:00) BEHAVIORAL

Full perception and cognition battery administered shortly after habitual wake (about 08:00): time-perception tasks (interval production/estimation, duration discrimination, passage-of-time judgement), state measures (sleepiness, mood, arousal), colour tasks, a perceptual conformity task, and a vigilance task.

Evening-first sequence; Morning-first sequence

Evening test session (about 22:00) BEHAVIORAL

The identical battery administered late in the evening (about 22:00), enabling within-participant comparison of the same measures at the two times of day.

Evening-first sequence; Morning-first sequence

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 55 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• Healthy adult, 18-40 years
• Clear morning-type or evening-type on the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ-SA); intermediate types excluded (state exact cut-offs, e.g. evening-type 41 or below, morning-type 59 or above)
• Normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity
• Normal colour vision (e.g. Ishihara screening)
• Fluent in the testing-site language (Danish, Chinese, or English)
• Able to attend both an early-morning (about 08:00) and a late-evening (about 22:00) session

You may not qualify if:

• Intermediate chronotype (MEQ in the middle band)
• Night or rotating shift work in the past 3 months, or recent trans-meridian travel (more than 2 time zones in the past 4 weeks)
• Diagnosed sleep disorder (e.g. insomnia, sleep apnoea)
• Current psychiatric or neurological disorder
• Use of sleep medication or psychoactive or CNS-active drugs
• Colour-vision deficiency
• Substance-use disorder

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Child Development Centre

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

RECRUITING

Related Publications (6)

• Kuriyama K, Uchiyama M, Suzuki H, Tagaya H, Ozaki A, Aritake S, Shibui K, Xin T, Lan L, Kamei Y, Takahashi K. Diurnal fluctuation of time perception under 30-h sustained wakefulness. Neurosci Res. 2005 Oct;53(2):123-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2005.06.006.

  PMID: 16039739 BACKGROUND

• Kuriyama K, Uchiyama M, Suzuki H, Tagaya H, Ozaki A, Aritake S, Kamei Y, Nishikawa T, Takahashi K. Circadian fluctuation of time perception in healthy human subjects. Neurosci Res. 2003 May;46(1):23-31. doi: 10.1016/s0168-0102(03)00025-7.

  PMID: 12725909 BACKGROUND

• Buysse DJ, Reynolds CF 3rd, Monk TH, Berman SR, Kupfer DJ. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: a new instrument for psychiatric practice and research. Psychiatry Res. 1989 May;28(2):193-213. doi: 10.1016/0165-1781(89)90047-4.

  PMID: 2748771 BACKGROUND

• Roenneberg T, Wirz-Justice A, Merrow M. Life between clocks: daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes. J Biol Rhythms. 2003 Feb;18(1):80-90. doi: 10.1177/0748730402239679.

  PMID: 12568247 BACKGROUND

• May CP, Hasher L. Synchrony effects in inhibitory control over thought and action. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1998 Apr;24(2):363-79. doi: 10.1037//0096-1523.24.2.363.

  PMID: 9554091 BACKGROUND

• Horne JA, Ostberg O. A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms. Int J Chronobiol. 1976;4(2):97-110.

  PMID: 1027738 BACKGROUND

Central Study Contacts

Cehao Yu, PhD

CONTACT

+852 61570422; cehao.yu@polyu.edu.hk

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: CROSSOVER
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Research Assistant Professor

Model Details: Each participant completes both a morning (about 08:00) and an evening (about 22:00) test session in counterbalanced order; the two arms are the two session orders. Chronotype (morning-type vs evening-type) is a prespecified between-subjects classification. The key comparison is the chronotype-by-time-of-day interaction (synchrony: match vs mismatch).

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 22, 2026
• First Posted: June 30, 2026
• Study Start: September 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2028
• Study Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2028
• Last Updated: June 30, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-06

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: Beginning after publication of the primary results, with no planned end date.
• Access Criteria: Open access via the Open Science Framework; no application required.

Locations

HK (1)