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Abstract This study explored the effect of verbal cues, and of the expectations they create, on perceived speed and duration using audiovisual stimuli across two experiments. In both experiments, participants viewed identical stimuli of two different durations, featuring a female cartoon-like avatar speaking in German. Through instructions, participants were led to expect that the stimuli will be presented in various speeds, although there were no actual speed variations. In Experiment 1, participants reproduced the duration of each stimulus and rated its speed on a 1–9 scale. The results showed that the speed instructions significantly affected both speed perception and reproduced durations, with stimuli presented as “fast” being rated as faster and reproduced as shorter, while those presented as “slow” being rated as slower and reproduced as longer. Experiment 2 focused exclusively on the time reproduction task to rule out the possibility that speed information retained in memory influenced participants’ reproduced durations in Experiment 1, as they were requested to first reproduce the duration and then rate the speed. The results of Experiment 2 were similar to those of Experiment 1, suggesting that verbal cues alone even without actual changes in speed or duration — can influence perceived durations, highlighting the role of expectations in shaping time perception.