Our perception of time is somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, it seems linear and fixed. It’s impossible to go back in time, and minutes, days, months, and years follow one after the other, moving strictly forward.
On the other hand, it seems as though time can stretch, freeze, or speed up. There are moments that seem to last an eternity. For example, waiting in line or sitting through a boring meeting after work. Weekends or vacations, on the other hand, feel entirely different. They seem to fly by almost as soon as they begin. This is related to how our brain tries to manage time, using various types of illusions.
Chronostasis
This illusion is easily provoked independently. While reading a book or watching TV, shift your gaze to analog clocks. You’re guaranteed to catch a moment when the second hand is frozen in place. It seems to linger for too long, as if stuck between the markings, but then continues its usual rhythm. “Frozen clocks” most vividly illustrate the phenomenon of chronostasis. The cause of this harmless illusion is a complex process coordinating the work of the eyes and the brain. When a person focuses attention on something, visual perception of information outpaces awareness. Simply put, the eyes are faster than the brain, which is not surprising. The light reflecting off the page or screen must first reach the visual cortex. Then signal processing and interpretation occur. We don’t notice the process because it happens continuously, like breathing, blinking, or heartbeat. During a shift in attention focus, when the eyes move to a new target (in this case, the clock), the visual cortex stops receiving information. Otherwise, our vision would be blurry and disorienting. When eye movement stops, the visual cortex activates again. However, you’ve never noticed a blank or blind stretch of time during a shift in attention focus. The brain fills it in retrospectively to make the “picture” smooth and cohesive. The second hand was “photographed” before the eyes focused on it. That’s why it seems to linger in one place for too long.
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The Oddball Effect
Time “slows down” when we encounter something unusual but attention-grabbing. This “oddball” can be any stimulus. For example, a series of images with a simple dot that stays on the screen for exactly two seconds. One of the dots starts moving, expanding over the same two seconds, but it will seem to you that much more time has passed because the oddball stimulus has captured your attention, forcing you to process the information more carefully. The same mechanism works with auditory signals. Simply changing the tone of one of them can slow down time. Although the “oddball” sound itself will sound just as long as all the other monotonous signals. This is a product of evolution — part of the general instinct for self-preservation. Everything new and distinctive must be studied and evaluated for safety. Confirmation of this is research. When a visual stimulus becomes larger, as if approaching the observer, time slows down. That is, 2 seconds during which the dot expands turn into 3 or 4 seconds. At the same time, when the object shrinks, as if moving away from the observer, time returns to normal or even speeds up. For the brain, an approaching and potentially dangerous object is much more important, so more resources are allocated for its evaluation.
The Power of Fear
Different emotional states can influence our perception of time. Fear is one of the strongest emotions, causing the brain to work more intensively. When we are afraid, seconds turn into minutes, and minutes into hours. Of course, not literally, not in reality, but that’s how it feels. There is a partial connection here with the ‘oddball effect’ since everything scary stands out clearly from everyday life. The proximity of death is one of the scariest events imaginable. Some recount how their entire life flashes before their eyes in a matter of seconds. In such moments, adrenaline is released into the bloodstream, heart rate increases to absorb more oxygen, and bronchial arteries dilate. The effect of tunnel vision occurs: a person feels a surge of strength, and time seems to stand still. Thus, the body tries to save itself by releasing all resources for a final leap or other decisive action. However, there is another explanation. Experiencing a moment of mortal danger or just intense fear, we do not remember many secondary details. The brain was focused on the main threat — the source of fear. This can be imagined as memories in high resolution. A second-long event is recorded in detail, assessed from all sides, and therefore, it seems so long.
The March of Time
Everyone has heard that years fly by faster as a person gets older. Perhaps you have already felt this. A study was conducted in which people of different ages were asked to count 3 minutes in their minds. The group of young people under 20 performed the best. But the older the participant of the experiment, the sooner they reported completing the three-minute interval. Some participants, aged 60 and older, shortened 3 minutes to 40 seconds. There is an explanation for this illusion. For any person, a year consists of 365 days. However, this period is perceived very differently. A 14-year-old teenager sees a whole lifetime in a year. In conscious age, he has only lived through a few such periods, and each of them was rich, full of events, new discoveries, and experiences. By the age of 45, the value of a year significantly decreases; it becomes just another one among many years. New emotions or bright events become rare; everything goes in a familiar rhythm. That’s why it seems that the years fly by faster than before.
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