An exercise in time perception - Matt Danzico

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/an-exercise-in-time-perception-matt-danzico

Why is that some experiences feel like they last forever, while others fly by? We tend to miscalculate the time it takes to engage in novel activities due to the influence of memories. Matt Danzico explains why your childhood feels like it lasted forever and why that beach vacation seemed like two months rather than two weeks.

Lesson by Matt Danzico, animation by London Squared Productions.

Hello, humans.

My name is Matt

and for the next several moments,

you are going to listen to me.

Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Sorry. I'm just joking.

This is my normal voice.

Have you ever taken direction

from a mysterious voice on the computer before?

No? Perfect!

I want to try an experiment with you,

but I can't tell you what that experiment entails

because if I do,

it won't work.

You'll just have to trust me.

This will all make sense soon,

hopefully.

If you're sitting down,

stand up from your chair and take a step back.

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

so give yourself a bit of space.

Need to move some furniture around?

Take your time.

I'll wait.

On the count of three,

you're going to start hopping on one foot.

Are you ready?

One,

two,

three!

Hop,

hop,

hop,

hop,

hop.

Nice work!

OK, while you're still hopping,

I now want you to begin barking like a dog.

Ruff, ruff;

ruff, ruff;

ruff, ruff.

Wow, that's quite a bark!

And a few more.

Ruff, ruff, ruff.

And three,

two,

one,

stop!

Feel free to relax and sit back down.

Now, I want you think about how much time passed

between the moment I said, "Go!"

and you began hopping on one foot

to the moment I said, "Stop!"

Take a guess.

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

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

All done?

The exact time was actually 26 seconds.

Did you overestimate?

Chances are that you did.

So, what was the culprit?

The culprit was time perception.

Although we can make shockingly precise time estimates,

when we experience something new, unusual, or dynamic,

like hopping on one foot

while taking instructions from a voice on the computer,

or, say, jumping out of an airplane,

we often miscalculate how much time has passed.

Meaning, if you bungee jump for the first time,

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

while the recorded time may actually show

that the jump only lasted for 5.

The reason for this difference is

unlike your body's physical drop to the bottom,

your brain's perception of time does not follow

a straight line between two points.

Some scientists even believe

your brain follows more of a curved path

that is dependent on the amount of information

you take in as you fall downwards.

For example, David Eagleman,

a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine,

believes time perception is heavily influenced

by the number of memories and data

you record onto your brain.

When you have a new experience,

like jumping off a high dive for the first time,

your senses are heightened.

You're taking in more details

about sights, sounds, and smells

than you normally would.

And you store more data onto your brain

in the form of memories.

So, the more data you store in your brain,

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

or the color of the water,

the longer your perception of that experience.

Meaning, the number of memories

and data you record on your brain

has a direct impact on how long

you believe that experience to have lasted.

Have you ever heard a person recount

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

Although automotive accidents typically last seconds,

those involved often say they felt

the accident lasted far longer.

Time perception can also account for

why your childhood may have seem to have lasted forever.

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

but children record more data onto their brains.

This occurs because many of the experiences

we have as children are new and unfamiliar to us.

The stack of encoded memories on your brain

is so dense that reading them back makes you believe

your experiences must have taken forever.

Additionally, when you're 5 years old,

one year is 1/5 of your life.

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

further altering your perception of time.

And, if you're an adult,

think about a trip that you may have taken

to a far-away land for the first time.

Didn't those two weeks you spent exploring your surroundings

seem to have lasted far longer than 14 days?

Though time perception is rooted

in both hard science and theory,

it provides a great lesson for us

on how to live our lives.

I'm sure you have all heard

that a person shouldn't sit on a couch

and let life pass them by.

Well, time perception tells us why that is.

If you get up and engage with the world

and have new experiences,

and maybe even hop around on one foot

and bark like a dog,

you will literally perceive your own life

to have lasted for a longer period of time.