The perception of time.....

[n2doc]

snip:
SCAD diving was just what David needed — it was definitely terrifying. But he also needed a way to judge whether his subjects’ brains really did go into turbo mode. So, he outfitted everybody with a small electronic device, called a perceptual chronometer, which is basically a clunky wristwatch. It flashes numbers just a little too fast to see. Under normal conditions — standing around on the ground, say — the numbers are just a blur. But David figured, if his subjects’ brains were in turbo mode, they would be able to read the numbers.

The falling experience was, just as David had hoped, enough to freak out all of his subjects. “We asked everyone how scary it was, on a scale from 1 to 10,” he reports, “and everyone said 10.” And all of the subjects reported a slow-motion effect while falling: they consistently over-estimated the time it took to fall. The numbers on the perceptual chronometer? They remained an unreadable blur.

“Turns out, when you’re falling you don’t actually see in slow motion. It’s not equivalent to the way a slow-motion camera would work,” David says. “It’s something more interesting than that.”

According to David, it’s all about memory, not turbo perception. “Normally, our memories are like sieves,” he says. “We’re not writing down most of what’s passing through our system.” Think about walking down a crowded street: You see a lot of faces, street signs, all kinds of stimuli. Most of this, though, never becomes a part of your memory. But if a car suddenly swerves and heads straight for you, your memory shifts gears. Now it’s writing down everything — every cloud, every piece of dirt, every little fleeting thought, anything that might be useful.



Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/in-search-of-time/

[phantom power]

1. nice result

[BrklynLiberal]

2. The only thing I can say about time with certainty..The older you get, the faster it goes.

[tridim]

3. This happens sometimes when I'm playing guitar

I assume and hope it will happen more as I progress.

[qazplm]

4. not to be contrary

but it is turbo perception if perception is defined as the quantitative information we take in at once.

That experiment suggests we are perceiving a greater volume of information instead of it simply going through one eyeball and out the other to paraphrase the old addage, even if that perception is not itself in any other way differently qualitatively, i.e. perceiving time faster (and thus slowing down one's perception of time).