A stopwatch on the brain's perception of time

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jan/01/psychology-time-perception-awareness-research


Steady hands? Time appears to pass more quickly when we are busy than when we are bored. Photograph: David Sillitoe

Our perception of time changes with age, but it also depends on our emotional state. Research is steadily improving our understanding of the brain circuits that control this sense, opening the way for new forms of treatment, particularly for Parkinson's disease.

Time is an integral part of our daily life, regardless of whether we are in a hurry, relaxed, gripped by an emotion or bored stiff. We may be walking, driving, listening to music, hearing the phone ring, taking part in a conversation or doing a sport, but time is always there, omnipresent and immaterial. Whereas all our senses – sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste – bring into play specialised sensory receptors, there is no specific receptor for time. Yet it is present in us, our brain being a real timing machine.

"From infancy onwards babies must come to grips with a world marked by recurrent time patterns, learning the length of time, or duration, associated with the various actions they experience every day," says Professor Sylvie Droit-Volet, at the Social and Cognitive Psychology Laboratory (Lapsco) at Blaise Pascal University, Clermont Ferrand, France. "They react, become agitated or cry, when something they expect does not occur on time: when the mobile over their bed stops turning earlier than usual, when their mother takes too long preparing a feed," she adds.

Very young children "live in time" before gaining an awareness of its passing. They are only able to estimate time correctly if they are made to pay attention to it, experiencing time in terms of how long it takes to do something. "For a three-year-old, time is multifaceted, specifically related to each action," Droit-Volet explains. At the age of five or six a child is able to transpose the duration it has learned to associate with a particular action (pressing a rubber ball) to another (pulling on a lever). "They begin to realise that a single time continuum exists separately from individual actions," she adds.

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1. Fascinating!

I love this kind of science. Thanks for posting.

[Speck Tater]

2. Time flies when you're having fun.

Or as Kermit the frog said, "Fun times when you're having flies."