3 ms·

perception of time is interesting. I saw something years ago, I believe the discovery channel, where a researcher put a watch-like device on particpants wrists.

perception of time is interesting. I saw something years ago, I believe the discovery channel, where a researcher put a watch-like device on particpants wrists. its refresh rate was such that you could not see the number it displayed. when a person the was dropped from a height on a bungee, they could see the number. the explanation was the adrenaline serge causing the perception of time to become enhanced, thus the refresh rate was no longer too fast to prevent one from seeing the number. I can relate; I had a car fly in a barrel role towards my car in a near head-on collision all action-movie like. Time slowed and I could make out the driver and passenger with high clarity. their facial expressions, the passenger's 49'ers jacket and her necklass dangling in the air... it was quite the experience! (please ignore typos as my phone is not giving me spelling corrections for some reason)

qznc 11y ago
As far as I remember the outcome of that experiment is exactly reverse. They could not read the numbers.
babby 11y ago
That's interesting stuff. I was also in a car accident and afterwards both he and I could recount each other's facial expressions (Though they could be imagined). I just wonder whether it is memory fidelity increasing or if brain "performance" also grows.
- austinjp 11y ago
  My understanding of the "time slowed down" phenomenon is that the recollection is more detailed due to the intensity of the experience. However this extraordinary detail is an illusion. The recollection feels so detailed that, in retrospect, one feels that time must have been slowed down during the experience in order to absorb so much information. It is the apparent intense detail that produces the subjective effect of time dilation. However the detail was not collected during the experience; it is conjured during "recollection". These recollections are generally inaccurate. Almost saccade-style, the imagination fills in gaps. The recollected detail -- e.g. facial expressions during a car crash -- did not actually happen. They are imagined. Eyewitness accounts of highly emotive events such as robberies or crashes are notoriously unreliable, yet the witnesses swear on their accuracy, and describe events in detail -- inaccurately. On mobile, references tricky. Google eyewitness reliability for more.
bostonpete 11y ago
It seems like you managed to completely reverse the findings of the bungee study to match your own expectations... http://m.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-emergencies.html http://m.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-emergencies.html "Instead, the scientists found that volunteers could not read the numbers at faster than normal speeds."
- sethammons 11y ago
  ha! wow, thanks for the reality check. I woulda sworn that several people made out the number. well, that is memory for you I guess. going through the link, i like the explanation that you "record" more data over the period of time which in retrospect makes it feel like time slowed.
  - qznc 11y ago
    Ok, let's do this right: Research is by David Eagleman [0], who has written about it on the web [1] and originally in: Stetson, Fiesta, Eagleman (2007). Does time really slow down during a frightening event? PLoS One. [2] [0] http://www.eagleman.com/research/time-perception http://www.eagleman.com/research/time-perception [1] http://www.eagleman.com/research/110-time-and-the-brain-or-what-s-happening-in-the-eagleman-lab http://www.eagleman.com/research/110-time-and-the-brain-or-w... [2] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001295 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

qznc 11y ago

As far as I remember the outcome of that experiment is exactly reverse. They could not read the numbers.

babby 11y ago

That's interesting stuff. I was also in a car accident and afterwards both he and I could recount each other's facial expressions (Though they could be imagined). I just wonder whether it is memory fidelity increasing or if brain "performance" also grows.

austinjp 11y ago
My understanding of the "time slowed down" phenomenon is that the recollection is more detailed due to the intensity of the experience. However this extraordinary detail is an illusion. The recollection feels so detailed that, in retrospect, one feels that time must have been slowed down during the experience in order to absorb so much information. It is the apparent intense detail that produces the subjective effect of time dilation. However the detail was not collected during the experience; it is conjured during "recollection". These recollections are generally inaccurate. Almost saccade-style, the imagination fills in gaps. The recollected detail -- e.g. facial expressions during a car crash -- did not actually happen. They are imagined. Eyewitness accounts of highly emotive events such as robberies or crashes are notoriously unreliable, yet the witnesses swear on their accuracy, and describe events in detail -- inaccurately. On mobile, references tricky. Google eyewitness reliability for more.

bostonpete 11y ago

It seems like you managed to completely reverse the findings of the bungee study to match your own expectations... http://m.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-emergencies.html http://m.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-emergencies.html "Instead, the scientists found that volunteers could not read the numbers at faster than normal speeds."

sethammons 11y ago
ha! wow, thanks for the reality check. I woulda sworn that several people made out the number. well, that is memory for you I guess. going through the link, i like the explanation that you "record" more data over the period of time which in retrospect makes it feel like time slowed.
- qznc 11y ago
  Ok, let's do this right: Research is by David Eagleman [0], who has written about it on the web [1] and originally in: Stetson, Fiesta, Eagleman (2007). Does time really slow down during a frightening event? PLoS One. [2] [0] http://www.eagleman.com/research/time-perception http://www.eagleman.com/research/time-perception [1] http://www.eagleman.com/research/110-time-and-the-brain-or-what-s-happening-in-the-eagleman-lab http://www.eagleman.com/research/110-time-and-the-brain-or-w... [2] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001295 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....