Time perception is a subjective experience of time that differs based on people and their
real-life surroundings.
Perceptions of time change drastically based on our emotions and feelings at a particular
moment.
With most of the world still in lockdown, I think we can all relate to the feeling of
time passing slowly or as we get older, each year becomes a smaller portion of our lives
and so time appears to pass quickly.
Changes in time perception have always been known and understood with regard to traumatic
situations and experiences, but this change is also seen in pleasant environments or experiences
such as the so-called love at first sight.
The passing of time, unlike our other senses of taste, smell, and touch, is not something
we sense or feel but rather something that is perceived.
On a daily basis, our eyes take in a ton of information happening around us in real time
and present it to the areas in our brain that are responsible for time perception, most
commonly the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Right Cortex.
From studies on lab mice, damage to the Fornix for time perception reduced their ability
to recall long term memories.
This perception of time may be altered if a person is focused on a specific object of
attention such as a pretty face giving only the illusion of slowed time in the moment.
Also, as perception of time is analyzed in parts of the brain that are also responsible
for decision making, impairment of time perception may also impair decision making.
Impairment or a disorder of time perception is also seen in psychiatric conditions involving
impulsivity like substance abuse or addiction which is why a high can seem to last forever
but upon recollection it was only a short time.
When a person looks at something pleasant, the reward center of the brain secretes dopamine,
which boosts one’s mood and makes them feel emotions of elation and attachment.
50 years of research has shown us that newborns just a few days old to the most elderly experience
small dopamine rushes when looking at a pretty face, like discovering a rare pokemon in the
wild, because its something out of the ordinary and gets stored in memory.
The act of storing memories helps slow down perceptions of time and so this is where love
at first sight comes from.
In fact, this slowing down of time is explained by Robert E Ornstein , in his book; On the
Experience of time.
When going through something traumatic like a car accident, we absorb our surroundings
and the main memory forming parts of the brain, the amygdala and hippocampus, form excessive
memories like Peter Parker trying to take in as many shots of Spiderman as possible
knowing full well that they're all faked.
This formation of excessive memories has proven beneficial to our ancestors for their survival.
According to Ornstein, the more information and memories the brain has to process, the
slower time seems to pass.
This hypervigilance during life-threatening situations increases the amount of information
for the brain to process, hence slowing down the time significantly.
However, it doesn’t directly explain how we measure time internally.
Why does something feel longer than the other?
For that, most studies in temporal perceptions (time-based cognitive research) use the Scalar
Expectancy Theory by Gibbon and colleagues 1984.
We all have an internal clock which emits regular interval ticks.
When focusing on something, we’re consciously accumulating the ticks like a stopwatch measuring
time and once finished store it to memory.
The important part to note is how time accumulation is attention sensitive, i.e. were we paying
attention to when the task started and ended, and more importantly, the rate of ticks is
arousal sensitive and so arousing faces makes the ticks go faster.
Using this scalar expectancy theory, an attractive face can divert our full attention, making
it very clear when the timed-event started and allowing our internal ticks to accumulate.
Like emotion, facial attractiveness is thought to be processed partly by the amygdala and
involves activation of the superior temporal sulcus, which is also activated during the
evaluation of emotional faces.
Winston et al. (2007) demonstrated that amygdala activation is nonlinear, in that it responds
to both attractive and unattractive faces, with less activation for neutral faces.
Ogden’s 2013 paper examined this exact question.
In this study, twenty female subjects between the ages of 18 and 25 years were shown pictures
on a computer screen and asked to estimate how long each picture was on their screen.
The pictures shown to the subjects were chosen in an earlier stimulus test in which 40 females
rated 36 unfamiliar faces between 1 to7, with 1 being very attractive and 7 being very unattractive
to get a general baseline of facial aesthetic.
The subjects in the study reported that the attractive pictures were on their screen for
only a short time whereas the unattractive pictures were on their screen for a longer
amount of time.
But wouldn’t this result contradict the statement of time slowing down when viewing
attractive people?
Well, not really.
The slowing of time may be experienced at the particular instant, it later manifests
as an experience of a shorter duration when experiencing or observing pleasurable actions
later on.
In other words, the smallest of highs feel extended in the moment but after we recall
it as a short, fleeting experience and want to go back for a longer period.
From the results, unattractive faces were underestimated for on screen duration, perceiving
time to go faster than it actually did, whereas attractive faces were overestimated, being
burned into one’s conscious for longer than it actually should.
The paper explained this by attributing less attention being paid to the unattractive face
and so accurately timing the event is skewed.
Instead, when you see an attractive face it immediately draws attention and your internal
pacemaker begins ticking much slower.
However there is a nuance to time slowing down for attractive faces.
Angrilli et al 1997 demonstrated that when arousal was low, positive images, i.e. those
with happy facial expressions were judged as lasting longer on screen vs negative images.
However, when arousal was high negative expressions were judged to last longer and vice versa.
The way emotions play a role in attractiveness perception will be a video on its own next
week, but what this finding and the subsequent 2004 and 2009 repeats indicate is that we’re
more aroused by angered expressions in people we already find physically attractive but
when someone we find unattractive acts negatively towards us, we end up blocking it out.
Time perception is bound to be physiologically altered in pleasant and unpleasant situations.
This alteration is necessary to maintain our reproductive proficiency by developing physical
attachment to attractive, healthy individuals.
To finish out this trilogy on facial perceptions, for the next video we’ll be looking at how
humans perceive attraction based on facial emotions and whether smiling really makes
a person more attractive.
If you want us to assess your own attractiveness and facial aesthetic, you can purchase a facial
aesthetics report, written by medical professionals over at the QOVES website.