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Hello, humans.

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My name is Matt

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and for the next several moments,

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you are going to listen to me.

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Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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Sorry. I'm just joking.

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This is my normal voice.

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Have you ever taken direction

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from a mysterious voice on the computer before?

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No? Perfect!

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I want to try an experiment with you,

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but I can't tell you what that experiment entails

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because if I do,

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it won't work.

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You'll just have to trust me.

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This will all make sense soon,

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hopefully.

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If you're sitting down,

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stand up from your chair and take a step back.

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In a moment, I'm going to have you twirl around,

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so give yourself a bit of space.

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Need to move some furniture around?

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Take your time.

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I'll wait.

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On the count of three,

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you're going to start hopping on one foot.

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Are you ready?

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One,

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two,

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three!

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Hop,

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hop,

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hop,

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hop,

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hop.

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Nice work!

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OK, while you're still hopping,

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I now want you to begin barking like a dog.

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Ruff, ruff;

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ruff, ruff;

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ruff, ruff.

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Wow, that's quite a bark!

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And a few more.

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Ruff, ruff, ruff.

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And three,

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two,

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one,

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stop!

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Feel free to relax and sit back down.

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Now, I want you think about how much time passed

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between the moment I said, "Go!"

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and you began hopping on one foot

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to the moment I said, "Stop!"

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Take a guess.

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I'm looking for an exact number of seconds or minutes.

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Now, with a pen and paper, write that number down.

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All done?

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The exact time was actually 26 seconds.

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Did you overestimate?

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Chances are that you did.

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So, what was the culprit?

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The culprit was time perception.

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Although we can make shockingly precise time estimates,

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when we experience something new, unusual, or dynamic,

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like hopping on one foot

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while taking instructions from a voice on the computer,

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or, say, jumping out of an airplane,

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we often miscalculate how much time has passed.

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Meaning, if you bungee jump for the first time,

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your fall to the bottom may seem like it lasted for 10 seconds

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while the recorded time may actually show

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that the jump only lasted for 5.

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The reason for this difference is

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unlike your body's physical drop to the bottom,

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your brain's perception of time does not follow

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a straight line between two points.

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Some scientists even believe

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your brain follows more of a curved path

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that is dependent on the amount of information

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you take in as you fall downwards.

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For example, David Eagleman,

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a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine,

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believes time perception is heavily influenced

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by the number of memories and data

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you record onto your brain.

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When you have a new experience,

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like jumping off a high dive for the first time,

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your senses are heightened.

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You're taking in more details

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about sights, sounds, and smells

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than you normally would.

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And you store more data onto your brain

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in the form of memories.

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So, the more data you store in your brain,

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like the smell of chlorine as you leapt from the high dive

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or the color of the water,

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the longer your perception of that experience.

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Meaning, the number of memories

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and data you record on your brain

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has a direct impact on how long

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you believe that experience to have lasted.

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Have you ever heard a person recount

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what it's like to be in a car accident?

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Although automotive accidents typically last seconds,

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those involved often say they felt

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the accident lasted far longer.

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Time perception can also account for

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why your childhood may have seem to have lasted forever.

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By adulthood, a year can slip by in a heartbeat,

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but children record more data onto their brains.

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This occurs because many of the experiences

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we have as children are new and unfamiliar to us.

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The stack of encoded memories on your brain

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is so dense that reading them back makes you believe

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your experiences must have taken forever.

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Additionally, when you're 5 years old,

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one year is 1/5 of your life.

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But, when you're 25, one year makes up 1/25,

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further altering your perception of time.

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And, if you're an adult,

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think about a trip that you may have taken

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to a far-away land for the first time.

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Didn't those two weeks you spent exploring your surroundings

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seem to have lasted far longer than 14 days?

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Though time perception is rooted

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in both hard science and theory,

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it provides a great lesson for us

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on how to live our lives.

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I'm sure you have all heard

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that a person shouldn't sit on a couch

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and let life pass them by.

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Well, time perception tells us why that is.

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If you get up and engage with the world

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and have new experiences,

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and maybe even hop around on one foot

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and bark like a dog,

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you will literally perceive your own life

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to have lasted for a longer period of time.