Surprise! You Just Distorted Time

Extremely dangerous, traumatic, or surprising moments are often accompanied by reports that time seemed to "slow down" or "fly by." The perceptual basis of these subjective temporal distortions is unclear, but not for lack of trying: one recent experiment went so far as to drop subjects off a 400 foot tower while testing their ability to decipher a rapidly flashing string of numbers -- a test of perceptual processing speed. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Ironically, temporal distortion may be more noticeable in such mundane experiences. A 2004 study by Tse and colleagues reviews evidence that durations are estimated as somewhat longer as more complex stimuli are being presented -- as though time is subjectively expanding. In contrast, when subjects must actively attend to those stimuli or perform a secondary task while estimating durations, they tend to estimate those elapsed durations as slightly shorter -- as though time is subjectively contracting.

Read full story in Developing Intelligence