HOW DO WE PERCEIVE TIME?

January 05, 2020

For the perception of light, temperature and sound we’ve got specific sensory organs: light-sensitive receptors in the retina of our eyes, temperature-sensitive receptors in our skin, and vibration-sensitive receptors in our ears. But there’s no corresponding sensory organ for time. And yet we have a sense of time that functions across a scale that stretches from milliseconds to years.

David von Becker

Some sections on this scale have their own research areas, such as chronobiology, the perception of rhythms and of long and short durations. Short durations refer to durations between a few hundred milliseconds and a few seconds, that is, everything that still feels like “at this very moment” or, at the longest, “just now”.

We usually only become aware of perceiving time in this way when something lasts for an unusually long or short period: if a website takes a little longer than usual to load, we quickly suspect that something’s wrong with the Internet. A similar situation: we feel a flash of unease that something’s not quite right with our credit or debit card if a store’s card processing machine takes an unusually long time before confirming a transaction. These examples show that we subconsciously keep track of the timing of events (“How long has the website been loading now?”) and also have a memory for durations (“How long does the website usually load?”).

TIME PERCEPTION IN EXPERIMENTS

To find out how we perceive such short durations, participants were asked to estimate the duration or temporal structure of different sensory stimuli.

HOW OUR PERCEPTION OF TIME CAN BE INFLUENCED:

The presented stimuli differ not only in their duration, but their other properties are changed systematically too. What has become clear from the research findings: perceived time is not equal to physical time. And all imaginable factors distort our estimates of durations: size, number, speed – in general, properties that can be classified as more or less; but our immediate experiences also influence whether an event strikes us as being shorter or longer. These are only the external factors of influence – but our mental state changes our perception of time too: fluctuating attention or our emotional states play a role in this regard.

In fact, our perception of time cannot only be slowed down but also speeded up.

HOW IS TIME PROCESSED IN THE BRAIN?

Each of our senses is assigned a specialised brain area for signal processing: for example, visual information arrives in the visual cortex, while the olfactory cortex is used to perceive smell, and our sense of touch is connected with the somatosensory cortex.

No central location in the brain has yet been found for the perception of time. Research findings suggest rather that different systems are involved in different types of time perception. For example, there’s the circadian rhythm, which controls, among other things, our sleep-wake rhythm and which is firmly anchored in cell physiology. Being asked when we last went on holiday, cleaned out the wardrobe or received a compliment concerns a type of time perception too, but one that relies mainly on our memory and knowledge of clocks and calendars.

For the perception of short durations, as described in this article, no neuronal stopwatch has yet been found either. As things stand, researchers assume that time can be derived from neuronal processes that underlie completely different cognitive tasks. The theory behind this concept is that all cognitive and neuronal processes are inherently temporally extended – which is why time-related information is omnipresent in the brain.

ANSWERS

Which of the point clouds was visible for longer? The most common answer: the blue one. In fact, both were visible for the same duration, but the number of points affects our perception of time: more points – more time.

Which dot was visible for longer? The most common answer: the red one. As you might guess, both of them were actually displayed for the same duration. However, the dots you saw immediately prior to the blue dots were visible slightly longer than the ones that preceded the red dot – what we perceived an instant ago influences what we perceive at the moment.

Which duration between the appearing dots was longer? The most common answer: the duration between the red dots. In fact, the durations were the same again. This illusion is known as the Kappa effect. The spatial distance between the dots affects the perception of duration: more distance – more time.

Which distance was greater? The phenomenon also works the other way round and is known as the tau effect. In this case, the spatial distance between the blue dots is usually perceived as larger, although it’s the same as the distance between the red dots. The reason: the duration of the blue dots was longer, so the distance is overestimated.

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Schlichting, Nadine – Time & Other Dimensions, Universität Groningen, 2019.

Wittmann, Mark – Gefühlte Zeit: Kleine Psychologie des Zeitempfindens, C.H. Beck, 2013.

Buonomano, Dean – Your Brain is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time, WW Norton & Co, 2018.

FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

Psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo explains how our individual perspectives on time affect our work, health and well-being:

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