The present disclosure provides a compensation control method and a display device. The method includes in a standstill phase, controlling the display panel to stand still; after the standstill phase ends, sensing, by the timing controller, characteristic values of each row of the pixel circuits in the display panel in a time division manner by controlling the gate driver and the source driver; setting a black insertion time period between time periods for sensing characteristic values of different rows of pixel circuits, during the black insertion time period, controlling, by the timing controller, the gate driver and the source driver, to display a black picture on the display panel.