Can Time Slow Down? 444
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Does time slow down when you are in a traffic accident or other life threatening crisis like Neo dodging bullets in slow-motion in The Matrix? To find out, researchers developed a perceptual chronometer where numbers flickered on the screen of a watch-like unit. The scientists adjusted the speed at which the numbers flickered until it was too fast for the subjects to see. Then subjects were put in a Suspended Catch Air Device, a controlled free-fall system in which 'divers' are dropped backwards off a platform 150 feet up and land safely in a net. Subjects were asked to read the numbers on the perceptual chronometer as they fell [video]. The bottom line: While subjects could read numbers presented at normal speeds during the free-fall, they could not read them at faster-than-normal speeds. 'We discovered that people are not like Neo in The Matrix,' Eagleman said. 'The answer to the paradox is that time estimation and memory are intertwined: the volunteers merely thought the fall took a longer time in retrospect'."
Newsflash. (Score:2, Insightful)
And in other news: Water is wet.
Film reel at 11.
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes me wonder (Score:2, Insightful)
I have been in a few car accidents in my time, and I can say that time really does seem to slow down in that moment. I don't know if it's just the way I'm remembering those moments in time or if, at that exact moment, I really did feel like time slowed.
I wonder if the experiment mentioned was skewed by the fact that the subjects were never in any actual danger. They knew that they were in an experiment and there was little chance of harm. In a real-world situation, the potential for danger is real.
Re:Newsflash. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow down?!? What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, though, I see it as a matter of perspective. When I was younger, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" seemed to be the mantra because it seemed to take forever for things to happen. Maybe it's because I have adopted more patience over the years, so the waiting isn't as noticeable.
Re:Newsflash. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
I also am unclear as to what they think they're testing. They're faced with the question, "Does time really seem to slow down?" and in response they test, "Are people able to see and process things faster?"
It's not clear to me what that the test answers the question. Does time *actually* slow down, and in a Neo-like state we can stop to look around while bullets are flying at us? Of course not. But do things *seem* to move more slowly? It seems so.
Re:Newsflash. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Understatement of new Millennium (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slow down?!? What?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't bode well as if you extrapolate this phenomenon out to the age of 70 then the last decade of your life will go by in what seems like a month.
I attribute this effect to the amount of time your brain has experienced. When you are 5 years old, an hour or a day is a much larger portion of the total time frame your brain has to relate to than when you're 20, 30, or 70.
At 5, a month is 1/60 of your brain's entire time reference. At 40 it's 1/480 of it. In relation to your brain's total time reference, an hour is much more significant at age 5.
It's just a personal theory.
That was never "obvious". (Score:5, Insightful)
The Church declared that it was flat. Despite the obvious fact that it was round.
Re:Newsflash. (Score:5, Insightful)
Invalidating this experiment... (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't a measurement of perception, but of the characteristics of eye refresh rates under stress.
I would have loved to have been on the IRB Board that oversaw this study, and read the protocol...
Completely absurd experimentation method (Score:5, Insightful)
Danger is what it's all about, or perception of danger. The adrenaline rush of the free-fall experience is only there because subconsciously you're still somewhat afraid, but the whole mind isn't involved in the fear.
This would be like saying "Can people exhibit super-human strength under extreme stress?" (eg the "mom lifts car off of baby" stories) and testing it by saying "ok so pretend that your baby is under the car and lift the car up ok". Sure buddy.
Next waste of time and money....
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is whether that apparent slowing is something you experience at the time and can take advantage of (i.e. if time slows to one-third speed, can you read numbers or dodge bullets three times as quickly?) or if it's an illusion your memory retroactively imposes.
Still, I think those are multiple different questions:
It seems that the people performing the study want to claim they've answered all of these questions, but from my brief reading, it seems to me that they've only even tried to answer the second question. (I'm pretty sure we can answer "no" to the third question, though, even without this study.)
Re:Completely absurd experimentation method (Score:3, Insightful)
If time perception only changed when you actually thought there would be danger involved, roller coasters would be far less interesting.
Re:Invalidating this experiment... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Newsflash. (Score:4, Insightful)
My point? While you are correct in pointing out that any travel will cause effects, but significant effects are observed only for a significant fraction of the speed of light, you didn't mention that the original poster was even more wrong than you said since faster than light speeds cause time to reverse, not to go slower (though, obviously, your velocity at that point also changes how quickly time reverses).
Re:Example: Filipino Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Time does seem to move differently there. I want one of those test boxes to try out on myself.
Since that article was written, they've started working on the next generation. One of the songs they teach children in elementary school now goes in part "Be on time, be on time, that's the true Filipino Time
Time for you has not changed, just the importance. (Score:1, Insightful)
Similar, when people say time takes forever at a meeting (particularly ones they dislike), the importance of retaining memories of the event focus on either; 1) your inner monologue complaining about the issue, each repetition of those thoughts, and the perception of significant time passing between something seemingly-important happening to you, or 2) sweating each and every detail if you're in a pinch and have to contribute which makes you nervous, hence why each and every detail is important, and seems to drag on.
If I could relate it to anything, it would be like variable bitrate in mp3 compression; the parts determined as unique get the most importance and therefor most 'memory', while everything else gets loosely tied together, even if they all have the same baseline.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Using as a metaphor the eyes as a video camera with some "shutter speed" and your memory being an analog tape that records events, all they tested was if the shutter speed of the eyes increases under stress. What they didn't address is if the memory tape gets sped up while recording - making things seem, at least in hindsight, to have taken a long time.
If the shutter speed is the same but the tape goes faster, you would still see just as many numbers as the non-stressed environment but you would remember seeing each number for a longer time. Many of the posts here (and my own experience) indicate that the perceived slow down seems to happen but that the subject does not feel they can act any faster compared to outside events. This would actually support the 2nd idea - that maybe memory-recording neurons are firing faster during the stressful event - but that the senses themselves are not particularly enhanced (at least in a time-wise fashion).
That said, I agree with what you're saying. Simulated life-threatening is different than real life-threatening. It's like the guys saying waterboarding is not torture because they underwent it in training. Well, undergoing it in a controlled situation by guys from "your side" is very different than being in a secret prison, cut off from the world, done by guys who don't mind if they kill you. I also imagine the time perception is different there too.
Re:Film at 11 - but Fox made it, so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Newsflash. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lol. Relative to what? Using the word "true" implies some kind of universal reference frame.
Re:Seconded... (Score:1, Insightful)
Time doesn't exist means there's no dimension of time - there's no scientific consensus about this, seeing (surprise surprise) that we cannot accurately experiment on this yet. As in, there's no way to travel to the future or the past, because neither exist.
Time being only a perception is a corrupted view of this. The rate at which events happen is the same (and simultaneously irrelevant outside a subjective view). Your perception may change but it means nothing.
Or - you don't move or react any faster than you physically could, adrenaline just gives you a massive temporary boost in both reaction time and strength. Doing this all the time would burn you out quickly and would eventually kill you by cardiac arrest, and that's why you don't normally have such strength and/or reaction time.
putting the fi in scifi (Score:2, Insightful)