The Power of Time Perception

by Jean Paul Zogby

  We saw how the remembered duration of an event depended on the number of memories stored from that event. “Psychological time distortions” occur when we attempt to compare an experienced duration with a remembered one, and get contradictory results. William James was among the first to observe this in 1890, when he wrote, “. . . in general, a time filled with varied and interesting experiences seems short in passing but long as we look back. On the other hand, a tract of time empty of experiences seems long in passing but in retrospect short.”

  “In remembered durations you count memories, whereas in experienced durations you essentially count time”

  Imagine a situation where one person is asked to perform a difficult math problem, while another person is asked to perform a simple one, and still a third person is asked to do nothing—all for the same time interval. Before beginning the activity, all three people are informed that they will have to guess the duration of the event once it has been completed. What would be the outcome? Research has confirmed that the activity will be estimated to be longest by the person who has done nothing. 136 It will be estimated to be the shortest by the one who has done the complicated mental math problem. Since all three people have to keep track of time during their activity, the person doing nothing allocates most of his attention to the passing time and will guess the longest and most accurate duration. The person doing the difficult math task will be focusing on solving the math problem and will lose track of time, so he will experience the shortest duration. The more we pay attention to time, the longer it seems and the slower it appears to run. Now, if this experiment was repeated but the participants were not told in advance that they would have to guess the activity’s duration, the results would be opposite. The person solving the complex math problem would guess the longest duration, as they would have stored more information in their memory from that activity. Whereas the person doing nothing at all would have virtually nothing to remember from that time and would recall the duration as having been very short. 137

  Another interesting 2005 study conducted in Manchester, grandly-titled the “Armageddon Experiment,” illustrated the contradictory results between experienced and remembered durations of time. In that study, one group of people watched nine minutes of the action movie Armageddon while another group waited for nine minutes in an adjacent room. When the nine minutes were over, they were each asked to guess how quickly time seemed to pass. The people in the waiting room judged the time as having passed more slowly than the movie group, who felt that time flew. The “Armageddon” group was having more fun and, as we know, time flies when we are having fun. For the waiting group, those nine minutes felt longer since they had an increased awareness of time. After that, the participants where then asked to read a novel for 10 minutes, after which they were asked again to guess the time spent watching the movie or waiting. As expected, judging the time interval from memory led to opposite results; the waiting period was now perceived to be shorter than the “Armageddon” period. This is because the waiting period was devoid of any interesting memories compared to the rich details stored by the movie group. In retrospect, the fewer number of memories from the waiting period caused that time interval to seem shorter compared to the movie group who recalled more memory markers, causing the nine-minute time interval to feel longer. 138

  This is similar to when we fall ill for a few days and feel time going very slowly with nothing much to distract our attention. However, once we recover, we look back retrospectively at those days and feel like they went by in a flash. That is because nothing remarkable happened. No novelty, no variation, and very few memory markers were encoded in our brain. The “experienced duration” of a few ill days equates to a few hours of “remembered duration” in our memory and, as time goes by, the whole period may be totally forgotten. Similarly, a stay-at-home parent’s typical day is full of repeated tasks such as feeding the baby, changing diapers, bathing them, and reading a bedtime story. At the end of a long and hectic day, it seems like they had breakfast ages ago. The weekend finally comes and when they look back at the week, it seems like that too flew because, except for the scarce first crawl, first walk, first word memories, the repetitive daily routine does not provide any significant memory markers.

  In brief, “experienced durations” depend on the level of attention dedicated to time during an activity, while “remembered durations” rely on the number of memories that are later recalled. Time flies when you’re having fun, but that duration will seem longer when recalled a few days later. In contrast, time drags when you are bored but will feel shorter when later recalled. As we shall see next, this type of time distortion is most pronounced during vacations.

  The Holiday Paradox

  The most commonly reported time distortion is vacation time. Imagine you are planning a two-week vacation and you want that time to run as slowly as possible. You know this can be done by increasing your level of alertness and focused attention so that your brain is able to process as much information and record as many mental snapshots as it possibly can. Researchers have estimated that a routine week would contain three or four instances worth remembering. But when on vacation, the number of interesting memories can jump to as much as nine in a single day. Therefore, a day on vacation feels much longer retrospectively than a normal day. If, for instance, you decide to go to an entirely new place where you can experience a new culture, exciting adventures, taste new foods, listen to novel music, and observe new sights and sounds, there will be many opportunities to retain memorable moments, which will stretch the remembered duration. But during the vacation, you will be so absorbed with these novel experiences that your attention will be distracted from the passing time. As soon as it is over, the vacation feels like it was over in a flash. It is only when you return to work and later recall that vacation that you realize that there was so much novelty to chew on, so much information to record and process, and so many memories to keep, that the vacation seems longer, as if time has stretched. The remembered duration will seem longer than the vacation duration that was experienced at that time.

  If, on the other hand, you take your two-week vacation at a familiar beach resort, the opposite time distortion occurs. You might spend the whole time in a relaxed mood, lying on the beach, reading a book, or enjoying the sun. The same ritual is repeated each day, with the exception of a nice dinner here and a short trip there. Having escaped your work environment and all its distractions, you are now able to devote your full attention to that peaceful rest time, and as a result, the days drag and the passing time slows down. However, when you are back at work and try to recall that vacation later, having collected only a few interesting memories, it will seem short. That experience might have been rejuvenating, but the vacation will not register much time in your mind. You will experience a time distortion, as the remembered duration feels shorter than the duration you experienced at that time.

  This effect does not just apply to vacations but can be used to enhance our overall perception of a more fulfilling life experience. If you want your life to seem long, you can slow it down by filling your weekends, months, and years with novel experiences. To have richer memories, you will also need an alert brain that can efficiently capture and retrieve them. But even with the best brain in the world, living your days to a routine will not provide it with any interesting material to absorb. The effect of memories on stretching the past time experience is also important because it counters the present time-speeding effect when having fun. Our retrospective time perception depends on the memories we collect when we are engaged in flow-inducing activities. We normally collect exciting memories during ‘flow’ experiences where time runs fast, but their large number and intensity produces a remembered past that is stretched. The more absorbed we are in these flow-inducing activities, the faster time runs in the present, but the more memories are captured and the longer that period will seem later on. Thus having fun makes for a satisfying present time experience but,
more importantly, creates vivid and long-term memories which, when later recalled, will weave a rich mosaic that stretches the story of our life.

  Let us now move away from the past and explore the ways we experience the future time, how we anticipate it, plan for it, and try to take some control over it as we grow older.

  Chapter 11

  Mental Time Travel

  Perceiving the Future

  The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is but today's dream

  ― Gibran Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

  Time Travel?

  Ever since humans developed the first hints of intelligence, they dreamt of time travel. Of course this is impossible but we do have the option of mental time travel. The process by which we imagine the future and then adjust our behavior to bring it about is one of the most fascinating skills we possess. Our ability to travel mentally into the future is possibly the crowning achievement of the human intellect.

  We are not the only species capable of future thinking. Scientists have observed a primitive form of mental time travel behavior in some animals, such as chimps and jaybirds. In 2009, zoo keepers at Furuvik zoo, in Sweden, reported that Santino, a male chimpanzee, had planned to hurl hundreds of stones at visitors to the zoo. They noticed that the chimp had been calmly amassing piles of stones in a place that faces the crowds, apparently saving them to later throw at visitors when the zoo opened. This was part of an aggressive display of dominance. After a few stones had been thrown with near-misses, researchers studying the phenomena suggested that Santino’s behavior indicated forward planning and premeditated trickery.

  Similar behavior has been observed in birds. In one study, researchers housed jaybirds on alternate days in two different houses: one day in a house where they received food, the “breakfast” house, and the next day in a house where they received no food, the “no breakfast” house. After a few days spent alternating between the two houses, extra food was placed in a location where they could access both the “breakfast” and “no breakfast” houses. The researchers found that the birds began storing the surplus food in the “no breakfast” house. This indicated that the birds anticipated that they would be hungry the next day and planned ahead.

  Such rudimentary planning is obviously nothing compared to the human capacity to think ahead into the far future, imagine various potential scenarios, and envision the actions that are required to achieve a future outcome. But what is interesting is that mental time travel for humans can also apply to the past. We can replay a sequence of events that have already occurred, and construct all kind of hypothetical alternate scenarios in our minds. We may replay an argument we had with a friend to figure out what went wrong or what might have been done differently. But time travel into the future is more frequent. If you are unoccupied and sitting around with some free time, check your thoughts and you will find that your mind has automatically wandered into the future. That little voice inside your head is constantly talking to you about what to do next. In fact, scientists believe that people think about the future about 59 times each day, that is almost once every 15 minutes 139. It appears that future thinking is our brain’s default mode of operation.

  When we imagine ourselves in the future, we start from our present point in time and envision the various steps and tasks we could be taking to reach that future situation. This is called “mental simulation” and is actually a great technique for remembering things. When you develop a detailed mental image of a plan in the future, you are more likely to remember to do it. If, for instance, you want to remember to pass by the dry cleaners, imagine yourself going to the shop, giving them your receipt, receiving your clothes, and paying at the counter. This method is far superior than repeating to yourself that you need to pass by the laundry shop.

  Now, imagine receiving an invitation for dinner next week to a new restaurant that you have never visited before with a group of people you have never met. Imagine what the restaurant will look like, what decorations are on the wall, the chairs, the tables, etc. Imagine the people you are going to meet, the clothes they are wearing, imagine the food you will be eating, the drinks, and the dessert. If you look closely enough, you will realize that a lot of the details you came up with did not just appear from thin air, but are actual images from your past memories. We all use details from our past to imagine the future. Our memories constitute the building blocks for our future thinking. This is confirmed by studies performed on people who were asked to think about the future while connected to an fMRI brain scan. The results revealed that a small area of the brain called the hippocampus lit up, the very same area where memories are stored. 140

  Other evidence comes from people who lose their memories. The famous case of Henry Molaison, known by thousands of psychology students as “HM,” who, in 1953, lost his memory on an operating table in a hospital in Hartford, and who forms the basis of the main character in the movie Memento, cannot remember anything that happened more than a few minutes ago. And not only can he not recall the past, he cannot envision the future. When researchers ask him to picture himself somewhere he might go, he sees only a big emptiness.

  Imagining the future is the mirror image of remembering the past. “The present defines the future. The future builds on the foundation of the past,” says Lailah Gifty Akita, author of Think Great: Be Great! In both cases, we project ourselves into a mentally simulated scenario. Both processes are carried out by the same brain system. The more detailed the memories we carry, the better we are at planning the future. That is why elderly people or those with Alzheimer’s have difficulties planning ahead. It becomes more difficult to remember the past, and in turn it becomes harder to imagine the future. In the same way that it is harder to remember an event that is far in the distant past compared to a more recent one, it becomes harder to imagine an outcome that is further into the future.

  From an evolutionary perspective, we developed the capacity for mental time travel because it gave our ancestors an important advantage for survival so that we could plan ahead and prepare for the unexpected. We tend to think of memory as something that has to do with the past, but in reality, its main purpose has to do with the future. This capacity to travel in time mentally may be at the core of how we developed the concept of time. The ability to recall the past, which we saw earlier, and anticipate for the future, which we will explore now, eventually formed the basis of our time experience.

  Time Distortions Created by Anticipation

  You are watching your favorite soccer team playing the last five minutes of the World Cup final, having already scored 1–0. The opposing team is pressing hard and you obviously want those last five minutes to pass by quickly before they get the chance to equalize the score. But time crawls as you eagerly anticipate that final whistle. Now, let us assume it is the other way around, and your team was down 0-1 in those last five minutes. You would be wishing for those last minutes to stretch for as long as possible in order to postpone the final whistle, giving your team a chance to score. But instead, those last five minutes will feel so short and your team will be racing against the clock as time flies. When it comes to our experience of the future, anticipating a pleasant event slows down time while dreading an unpleasant one speeds it up. These are situations we have all experienced in our life in a variety of ways.

  When you are waiting for something to happen and feel that it is taking too long, this is normally the result of three related factors: the actual duration of what you are waiting for, how you feel about it, and whether you think that event is approaching or receding. Obviously, there is little you can do about the first factor, but you can change how you feel about that future event and whether or not it is approaching. By controlling the last two factors, you can shorten long periods of boredom and extend delightful moments of happiness. An example will illustrate how our future outlook affects our perceived speed of time.

  Imagine you are
the manager of a prominent 5-star hotel and your employer has just offered you a promotion that requires you moving to a famous remote island resort to manage their luxury hotel, with a huge raise to your salary. The planned move is expected in two months’ time. It is the moment you have been dreaming of and you start contemplating all the gains in that move, like the great weather, the career fulfillment, and all the things you can do with your additional income. However, your partner might have a different view on things. The move may represent a painful departure from home, family, or long-established friends, and she or he will instead start focusing on what will be lost. It is perceived as a gain or loss depending on each person’s perspective and priorities. Consequently, the two months leading to the move will be perceived differently depending on the expected outcome. For you, the time leading to the move will seem to take forever. While for your partner, this period will be over quickly. Studies have confirmed that future events that are expected to end with a loss appear to arrive faster than usual, compared to future events expected to end with a gain. 141 But what is the reason for that?

  “Positive anticipation slows down time. Dread speeds it up”

  One possible explanation for this time distortion has to do with loss aversion, which is people’s tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. For most people, losing $100 feels more painful than gaining $100 feels good. Losses often “loom larger” than gains. Recall in previous chapters how time and space are related in our mind because they share the same brain circuitry. It is a fact that our visual system operates in such a way that when an object is large in size, our brain assumes it is near and when it is small, the brain assumes it is far. Similarly, since a loss looms larger than a gain, the event leading to that loss will appear nearer in time. 141 This was confirmed in 2010 at the Washington University in St. Louis, in an experiment that involved 109 undergraduate students. Participants were asked to imagine that they were moving into a new office in two months. Some participants were told the new office is much larger and has more windows than their current office (considered a gain) and some were told the opposite (considered a loss). They were then asked how long the time to move seemed to them. The results indicated that the two-month interval leading to the anticipated loss appeared shorter compared to the students anticipating a gain, as if time was running faster. 141