We have all felt time drag during challenging periods, but there was little scientific understanding of how our emotional states influence our perception of time until recently. Now, it seems there really is a link.
and at the University of California, Santa Barbara, investigated whether emotional fluctuations shape people鈥檚 memories of the timing of events.
Eighty people looked at pictures that either typically induce a negative emotion, such as a picture of a coffin, or are neutral, such as a picture of a table. The images were shown for 4 seconds, with a 2.5-second gap between them. A grouping of four consecutive negative or neutral pictures constituted an 鈥渆vent鈥�.
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Between these events, the researchers would either switch the emotion, the colour of the pictures鈥� borders or both. This simulates how life experiences can differ in terms of perceptual details, in this case borders, or their emotional content.
Throughout the experiment, the researchers periodically assessed the participants鈥� perception of the time interval between pairs of images they had seen, with them indicating this on a slider marked with 鈥渧ery far鈥�, 鈥渇ar鈥�, 鈥渃lose鈥� and 鈥渧ery close鈥�. The images were always two that had appeared consecutively, but sometimes they were within the same event and other times they were the fourth image of one and the first of the next.
When gauging the distance between neutral to negative images from across two events, the participants judged it as longer. However, the researchers also showed that the participants perceived pairs of negative images from within the same event as being closer together than neutral pairs.
The researchers used questionnaires to assess each participant鈥檚 tendency to view things negatively. Those with higher scores tended to report time passing more slowly during neutral-to-negative switches. 鈥淒welling on negative events is associated with anxiety and depression,鈥� says at the University of Reading, UK. This research could one day be useful as an early warning sign of such conditions, says Wang.
The study didn鈥檛 include positive emotional images, so it isn鈥檛 clear whether the time-judgement effects are due to negative emotions specifically or acutely experiencing any emotion. The researchers are now studying if similar results occur after a positive event, and they are using measures of emotional arousal, such as facial muscle movements, to account for people鈥檚 different reactions to seeing the same picture.
bioRxiv
