BBC Radio 4 science programme Frontiers examines the psychology and neuroscience of time perception and considers how the sense of time can be warped when we’re put under stress.
In one part, the programme talks to psychologist David Eagleman who’s been running experiments with people doing ‘SCAD diving‘ – an activity where you jump free-fall off a 50 metre crane into a waiting net below.
He asks participants to try and judge time during the jump to see whether the stress of the situation genuinely affects people’s time perception – in an attempt to understand if things really go ‘in slow motion’ during emergency situations.
When a person’s life is in danger, a phenomenon known as ‘time-dilation’ can occur. This is when, during a car crash for example, time seems to slow down or become frozen.
In these cases the body’s internal clock speeds up when facing a potential catastrophe, so that it can take in more information more quickly and function more effectively in an emergency.
This is also a phenomenon actively sought by elite sportspeople, when they get ‘in the zone’.
Some of the chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine, can affect our perception of time. Deficiencies in these chemicals can lead to brain disorders.
In today’s technological age, the body’s natural clocks are being hijacked by timetables, schedules and diaries. By paying more attention to our watches, rather than our internal clocks, could we be losing touch with time as it should be perceived?