As best as I can tell, this article simply has the effect backwards from what Mazur claims. Rather than counting too fast, the usual psychology studies show th

As best as I can tell, this article simply has the effect backwards from what Mazur claims. Rather than counting too fast, the usual psychology studies show that the elderly count too slowly. Mazur cites Mangan et al (1996), which (seems to) claim: When 15 healthy adults ages 50 to 80 counted seconds to estimate a time period of three minutes, they took 3.7 minutes on average, scientists at the Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia at Wise reported recently at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. In contrast, 25 students ages 19 to 24 estimated the three-minute period accurately. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1996-12-03-9611290165-story.html https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1996-12-03-96112901... So when this article says "if they counted seconds for an hour they’d think the task done with around the 47-minute mark", it's backwards. If we assume linearity (should we?) it should say that the average elderly person would take about 1 hour 15 minutes to count an estimated hour. Confusing the issue, though, there do appear to be more recent studies claiming the opposite effect. This 2015 paper seems to clearly show that the elderly do take less than 90 "real clock" seconds to count off 120 "brain clock" seconds: Objective: To measure a 2 min time interval, counted mentally in subjects of different age groups. Method: 233 healthy subjects (129 women) were divided into three age groups: G1, 15-29 years; G2, 30-49 years; and G3, 50-89 years. Subjects were asked to close their eyes and mentally count the passing of 120 s. Results: The elapsed times were: G1, mean = 114.9 ± 35 s; G2, mean = 96.0 ± 34.3 s; G3, mean = 86.6 ± 34.9 s. https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2016000400006&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S000.... Unless I'm reading it wrong (the terminology of 'estimated' vs 'real' can be confusing), this seems to flatly contradict the earlier work by Mangan. It doesn't cite Mangan, though! And I can't actually find any of Mangan's studies online --- his CV lists his work (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/pm46/vita.html http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/pm46/vita.html) but without DOI's.