Devin Dougharty
Dr. Richardson
UNIV 112
November 24, 2014
How Slow Can You Go?
Many humans experience time at a rate that differentiates from the standard clock
time. For example, an airplane ride: “the first hour is agonizingly slow, the second hour
passes more quickly, and the remaining hours of the first leg pass more and more
quickly”(Quirks in Time Perception, Alter). The passengers agreed that each hour did not
necessarily feel like sixty minutes. The passage of time is relative, so is the human
perception of time passage. There are many things that may affect how a human
perceives the rate at which time is passing. These are outside of human control, the
happen naturally, and so quickly they can’t be avoided. Some of these would be
emotional responses, the novelty of a situation, the intensity of a situation (the takeoff
and landing in an airplane ride), and physical actions. Situations that elicit these reactions
can be avoided if preemptive measures are taken (with the exception of physical actions),
but instinctive reactions to situations that do occur cannot be controlled; such as the
release of chemicals in the brain due to emotion.
Emotion is often an instinctive response to certain situations. Emotion causes the
brain to release chemicals that naturally affect the brain’s ability to determine the
duration of time periods. Chemicals that are most closely related to the distortion of time
perception are Noradrenaline and Dopamine. These chemicals are naturally released by
the brain when certain situations arise; in other words a person, cannot decide whether or
not these chemicals will be released or how much will be released. Noradrenaline may be
released to help the body deal with certain stressful situations; it is used to help the brain
react to situations that cause hypotension. When Noradrenaline is released it may make
situations feel very long; a minute may feel like an hour. Many people experience this
symptom when they experience life-threatening situations, like car crashes. There is a
“switch” located in the brain that counts pulses in order to measure time, “that is
increasing the rate of pulse accumulation leads to larger and larger overestimations as the
target duration of the interval being timed increases”(How Emotions Color Our Time
Perception, Sylvie Droit-Volet). Adversely, the chemical Dopamine is released at times
of stimulation and excitement inside of the brain. Dopamine is known to be released at
times of “arousal and produces an overestimation of durations, which is characteristic of
an increase in clock speed” (How Emotions Color Our Time Perception, Sylvie DroitVolet). Another cause of perceived time distortion is experience, or how often a situation
has been encountered.
Predictability, or the absence of, plays a large part in how time is perceived by
human beings. Refer to the last paragraph, life-threatening situations seem to last longer
than average situations. This is partially due to the fact that life-threatening situations are
new, something outside of the ordinary array of events for most people. This has to do
with the amount of brain resources that it takes to process an event; “Time is this rubbery
thing. It stretches out when you really turn your brain resources on, and when you say,
‘Oh, I got this, everything is as expected, it shrinks up. [Dr. David Eagleman]” (The
Science of Time Perception, Belle Beth Cooper). Dr. David Eagleman confirms this
assertion with empirical evidence gathered from his research experiments. To test the
effect of predictability on time perception Dr. Eagleman showed research participants a
series of pictures. Most of the pictures were of a brown shoe; however occasionally there
would be a different picture, say one of a baseball or a flower. Eagleman then recorded
the participant’s ratings on how long each picture endured. Conclusively, he saw that the
participants rated the pictures that appeared more frequently as shorter, and the less
frequent, different pictures as longer. In reality, the pictures were shown for the same
amount of time. This also explains why time seems to fly as you get older, “this is
because the more we age, the more often we come into contact with information our
brains have already processed” (The Science of Time Perception, Belle Beth Cooper).
The only way to control this would be to either avoid situations that have been
experienced, or to search for new experiences. Neither of these options, however, actually
gives humans the ability to control how their brains’ react to certain situations. The
intensity of situations also effects human time perception.
As mentioned earlier, the release of certain chemicals in the brain can affect how
long or short a period of time seems to pass. Logically, if a situation is more or less
arousing it may affect the amount of chemicals released, and therefore affect the
perception of time passage. Dr. Droit-Volet states, “There is no single, uniform time, but
rather multiple times which we experience. Our temporal distortions are a direct
translation of the way in which our brain and body adapt to these multiple times, the
times of life" (A Stopwatch on the Brain’s Perception of Time, Marc Gozlan). Droit-Volet
validates this statement by providing some of her research on emotions and time
perception. She showed research participants different sets of pictures, as well as two
different types of films. The first film was a horror film, that evoked a strong sense of
fear within the crowd, because the sense of fear was so intense it seemed that time was
prolonged during the film. However, when the subjects were shown a subdued, but sad,
film they noted that time did not appear to be distorted. The same was seen in her
experiments involving showing photos. When participants were shown erotic photos,
large amounts of dopamine were released. This caused the participants to rate the
duration of the picture to be shorter than it actually was, the participants were left in a
state of desire. Both of these examples demonstrate natural desires, and how they affect
time perception, it can be seen that natural physical actions may also distort time
perception.
Less research is available about natural physical functions, and how they affect
time perception. Although, Dr. Eagleman did note that rapid eye movements still affect
time perception. When the human eyes move too quickly for the brain to process
information a saccade occurs. Instead, the brain perceives the information more slowly
causing “the occurrence of many events is interpreted by the brain as a longer duration”
(Human Time Perception and Its Illusions, David Eagleman).
Cumulatively, these examples show that human time perception is truly controlled
by actions in the brain that are not able to controlled by humans. The supporting points
provided in this essay show that the brain behaves instinctively, a reaction to the human
situation. While humans have free choice, allowing them to make decisions that may
affect the situations they experience, they do not have control over chemical reactions in
the brain (or how time will be perceived after these chemicals are released.). The
perception of time is heavily dependent chemistry of the brain, something outside of
human control. Humans also do not have the ability to alter how fast the brain will
process a new situation; they only have the ability to choose to expose themselves to
situations (or not.) Effectively, humans may control what is experienced, but not how it is
perceived.