Anticipating Physical Processes in VR: Environment Type and Scale Alter Temporal Expectations

Accurate temporal expectations support interaction in virtual reality (VR), yet it remains unclear whether the internal models that guide such expectations in the real world transfer unchanged to immersive VR. We report two experiments examining expected durations of gravity-driven motion across real and virtual environments. In Experiment 1, participants imagined a ball rolling down ramps in a physical lab, a 1:1 VR replica, and an up-scaled VR room and produced the time the imagined process would take. Results revealed systematic distortions: durations were underestimated in VR relative to the physical lab, and larger virtual spaces elicited longer durations. Experiment 2 assessed whether participants incorporated gravity laws into their simulations. Although gravitational acceleration was consistently underestimated, it was incorporated in both real and virtual environments. Our findings show that VR and its spatial scale bias temporal expectations, with implications for the design of temporally coherent and physically plausible VR experiences.