like it goes at different speeds?

Hey guys Julia here for the last time

Fascinating research into time reveals just our fluid our sense of time really is. Ever

been in a car accident and it seemed to unfold in slow motion? Well a study published in

the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that we feel like time slows down when

an object is coming toward us and time speeds up when it’s not moving or moving away from

us. The researchers believe this has to do with threat perception. Parts of your brain

fire that handle how we think about ourselves in relation to what’s going on around us.

So when something comes towards us, we need to plan what to do. If something moves away

from us, that might makes us relax, as it’s no longer a threat. Time slowing down or speeding

up is really all in your head.

Another study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological

Sciences found that time slows down if the stimulus is novel. The researchers think this

could be because you’re taking in more information at once than you normally do. So if something

new is heading right towards you, time might feel like it slows wayyyy down.

And you don’t have to wait for a life threatening situation to experience time slowing down.

One study published in the journal PLOS one found that purposely falling 15 stories does

the trick. The researchers had test subjects bungee jump 15 stories and estimate how long

they had been falling for. The terrified participants said they fell for about 4 seconds when really

it was only 2.5. And to test the idea that the slowing of time perception happens because

our brain is taking in more information -- like a slower computer churning through data -- the

researchers gave the participants watches that flashed numbers faster than they'd be

able to read under normal circumstances… They figured, if they were sucking in all

this info, then they would read the numbers on the watch face, but as the participants

fell, they still couldn’t do it. So time didn’t reeeaaallly slow down for them. It

seemed slower in retrospect because of the emotional charge of the situation.

But time seems to speed up too. Most of the time shifting we experience happens when we

get older. We settle into routines and every day just becomes a familiar blur of work and

stress. Some researchers believe time picks up speed as we age because each moment becomes

a smaller percentage of our lives. When we’re 10, a year is a tenth of our lives, when we’re

thirty, it's only 1/30th. This ‘proportional' theory, as it’s called, was put forth in

1877 by Paul Janet.

But it doesn’t explain everything. Studies like one published in the journal Acta Psychologica

found that time doesn’t actually speed up for older people. When they are asked out

count off a minute, they don’t do it any faster than a younger person. Or when asked

about how long the past month felt to them, there wasn’t much difference between people

of different ages. So our perception doesn’t change as we get older. Our memory of time

does.

The researchers proposed that novel experiences are the most memorable and as we get older,

we have fewer novel experiences. They also point to a phenomenon called 'forward telescoping'.

This where you think something memorable feels like it happened only yesterday, when really

it was TWENTY years ago, like when Toy Story hit theaters… . Basically memorable events

are clearer in our memories than less memorable ones, so we wrongfully assume they happened

more recently. Once you realize your error, man do you feel old.

Speaking of time flying by. It seems like just yesterday I joined DNews for the first

time. But really it was over a year ago! But now it’s time to say goodbye. While I’m

saying goodbye to DNews, I’ll still be around on the internet. Come find me on my Tumblr,

That’s So Science and on twitter @julia_sci. Thank you so much for being the best fans

and for all your thoughtful comments!

Got any other science questions for the DNews team? Thanks for watching DNews. I’ll see you around.