{"id":28716,"date":"2023-06-22T19:00:44","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T17:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=144261"},"modified":"2023-06-22T19:38:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T17:38:27","slug":"heres-why-the-world-goes-in-slow-motion-when-youre-falling","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/heres-why-the-world-goes-in-slow-motion-when-youre-falling\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s why the world goes in slow motion when you\u2019re falling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever dropped something, only to watch in slow motion as it falls and breaks? <\/p>

By Christian Jarrett\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 22 June 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Humans and other animals are good at estimating short time durations, which has led psychologists to infer that we must have some kind of internal clock<\/a>. One influential theory for how this clock works is that it\u2019s like a pacemaker that releases pulses. These pulses gather in an \u2018accumulator\u2019 and give us a sense of how much time has passed.<\/p>\n

Listen to the Instant Genius podcast: The body clock with Prof Russell Foster<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
But as you say, our internal clock is far from perfect, with many factors affecting how it works and distorting our subjective sense of time. A popular explanation is that this happens via the speeding up or slowing down the release of pulses from the pacemaker.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take your example of falling, an experience that most people find scary. Research suggests that when we\u2019re scared, the pacemaker goes into overdrive and releases pulses more quickly<\/a>. This leads to more pulses in the accumulator and an overestimation of how much time has passed.<\/p>\n
Say you fell for five seconds \u2013 if your accumulator filled up more quickly than usual, you might judge that seven seconds had gone by. In other words, time would appear to have stretched, to be longer than it really is, which you perceive as the passage of time having slowed down.<\/p>\n
Scientists have mimicked these effects with drugs. Stimulants that increase arousal lead to overestimates of the passage of time (felt as time slowing down), while drugs, such as tranquillisers, that lower arousal, tend to lead to underestimates of how much time has passed (felt as time speeding up).<\/p>\n
You may have noticed that in action movies, the hero will often experience time as slowed down during a dramatic event and this gives them a kind of super sense for what\u2019s going on. That would be cool if it were true, but sadly a study from 2007 suggested that that\u2019s not how it works<\/a>. They tested volunteers\u2019 ability to perceive a rapidly moving image as they fell onto a safety net. The volunteers felt like time had slowed down, but it didn\u2019t help them perceive the dynamic image.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n