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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

The theory is that the "biological clock" makes us feel like time goes by. But this biological clock is far from perfect, and many factors will affect it, thus distorting our subjective perception of time.

(Christian Jarrett / tr. by Robert Taylor)

Translation | Li Xiang

Editor | Wen Jing

The original article is published in Science focus 2023.07.

Like the "biological clock" of pulse pacemakers, humans and other animals are good at accurately estimating shorter periods of time, so psychologists speculate that there is some kind of built-in clock in the human body. There is a far-reaching saying about this kind of clock: the clock in the organism is like a pulse pacemaker, the pulse released is received by a "battery", which makes us feel the passage of time.

But as we all know, this biological clock is far from perfect, and many factors affect it, thus distorting our subjective perception of time. A popular explanation is that this is achieved by speeding up or slowing down the frequency of pulses released by pacemakers.

Take the fall that most people fear as an example. Studies have shown that when we are scared, pacemakers with built-in clocks overrun and the frequency of pulses increases. This causes the battery to receive more pulses, causing us to overestimate the length of time.

In the case of a five-second fall, for example, if a battery that measures the passage of time "recharges" at a faster speed, the faller may feel that seven seconds have passed. In other words, the time you feel subjectively seems to be longer than it really is, so you feel that the passage of time is slower, resulting in the feeling that the days are like years.

Even if it feels like time is slowing down, there will be no miracles. Scientists have simulated the same effect with drugs. Stimulants that enhance arousal in the nervous system cause people to overestimate the speed of time (feel time slows down), while sedatives that inhibit arousal tend to underestimate the speed of time (it feels faster).

For those of you who like to watch movies, you may find that the protagonists in action movies often experience slower time in the event of an emergency, which gives them a strong sense of what is happening. It would be cool if the reality could be the same.

Unfortunately, a 2007 study shows that this is not the case. The scientists asked volunteers to fall into a safety net and showed them a fast-moving picture during the fall. As a result, although the volunteers did feel that time was slowing down, their ability to recognize pictures did not improve.

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