
How the Brain Experiences Time - richardhod
https://neurosciencenews.com/time-perception-9771/
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grecy
> _Professor Moser says the study shows that by changing the activities you
> engage in, the content of your experience, you can actually change the
> course of the time-signal in LEC and thus the way you perceive time._

Huh, After a year driving through West Africa I had come to this same
conclusion, and am writing about it now for my next book. I liken it to how
video compression works - your brain doesn't bother storing every single
event, only those it hasn't seen before.

Bored sitting at your desk at 2pm on Tuesday? Done that before, don't bother
remembering.

Stuck in traffic? Done that before, don't both remembering

In those scenarios time tends to "fly" becuase you don't remember much.

\---

Watch a guy catch, skin and eat a money? WOAH! Never had that memory before.
Remember.

Get Malaria? Remember

Chat to military with AK47s trying to bribe me in Nigeria? Remember.

Now time goes slower, and that one year in West Africa feels longer than the 4
years of sitting at a desk job that came before it.

~~~
wilsonfiifi
Curious as to why the Nigerian soldiers would want to bribe you. Do you mean
they tried to get you to offer them a bribe?

~~~
grecy
Right, they were trying to get money out of me.

Here's a hidden cam video of it happening:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RTlDa2cg0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RTlDa2cg0o)

In countries like Guinea in happened every single day. I never paid.

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outworlder
> Professor Moser says the study shows that by changing the activities you
> engage in, the content of your experience, you can actually change the
> course of the time-signal in LEC and thus the way you perceive time.

This correlates with anecdotal experience. A 'routine' day goes by much faster
as opposed to a day with new experiences (travel to previously unseen places
for instance).

~~~
agumonkey
I still find odd how sometimes good times can feel dense and long even though
you feel time flies.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
Say my brain is used to processing one emotional state change per hour on a
typical, slow day.

Then a gauntlet of events happens that incur several state changes per hour
for several hours, whether those emotions are all positive or all negative.

I think I would feel as though more time had passed than the equivalent amount
of time on a slow day due to the denser tempo of psychological excitation.

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aarohmankad
I'm incredibly interested in how the brain experiences time during events of
stress or high action. (The skier tripping/falling is used as a visual example
in this article.)

On a much smaller scale, I wonder how time experience is changed among
individuals who consume media at different speeds? For example, I watch all
video media (Youtube, Netflix, various movies) at 2x speed. It could be
intriguing to compare my experience of a movie versus someone who watched it
regularly. Does the constant 2x-ing affect my evaluation of time in regular
life?

I'd be happy to read any and all articles/papers you may have on the topic.

~~~
dfee
Consuming significant amounts of content at enhanced speeds leads me to be
impatient with typical human interactions.

That’s problematic enough where I’ve given pause to the practice.

~~~
aarohmankad
That's definitely something I've experienced as well! I've learned to take the
time to absorb what people are saying/meaning with a greater degree of detail.
(That's at least how I believe I'm behaving, though it's tough to self-
analyze.)

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malthaus
Psychedelics (e.g. LSD) can also give you a hands-on and interesting view on
the subjectivity of time. Probably because you are overclocking/unfiltering
your mind and get flooded with inputs and thoughts, confusing this internal
timestamping.

~~~
posterboy
you are confusing LSd with speed here. A case of beer helps, too. And if
that's too fast just wind it down with Marijuana. When your heart stops, that
will give you a unique view on time, too.

~~~
malthaus
try it, psychedelics will alter your perception of time in a fundamental way.
not just in terms of being relaxed or focused.

~~~
posterboy
Maybe it alters my perception of time so much I don't know whether I already
tried it. So, I'll have to assume I already did. What were you trying to say?
I don't think you know what "fundamental" means. Most people get along
fundamentally well without having tried ...

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visarga
Technically, humans experience time through recurrence (analogous to recurrent
neural nets). A signal is passed through a computation block, including new
external signals, then the output is looped back to the input. So it is a
structure with internal memory that is changing based on input signals. We use
this to process vision in time, speech and movement. The thing is, even cells
can experience time, they have internal clocks based on chemical processes.

~~~
posterboy
> The thing is, ...

No that's not the thing. Perception of time is tied to external stimuli. Time
keeping is a conscious effort.

~~~
moh_maya
Umm. I hope I'm not misinterpreting your comment, but time keeping is innate
to the body. It does not need any "conscious effort". And almost all
multicellular life on earth does it. Most unicellular organisms also have (I
think) some equivalent of a circadian rhythm. [1] There's a large body of
evidence that the circadian rhythm is self generated, starting from this
classic self experiment in 1938 [2].

Sure, you need external cues to synchronise / entrain it, but the body does
keep its own time. As do animals, plants, insects..

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm)

[2] [https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.the-
scientist.com/foundat...](https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.the-
scientist.com/foundations/cave-dwellers-1938-33966/amp)

~~~
posterboy
Will "the brain", which is in question here, not loose the attained rhythm
once the stimuli are removed?

Even if making a stronger claim not focused on the brain specifically, plants
especially need light for like everything.

~~~
moh_maya
That's not really true. Take a look at the experiments performed all the way
back in the 18th century [1], where mimosa plants followed a rhythm even when
they were kept in an absolutely dark room.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Jacques_d%27Ortous_de_Mai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Jacques_d%27Ortous_de_Mairan)

More work since then extends this idea. Pubmed has a ton of good papers.

~~~
posterboy
I think the prime example where uncouncious rhythm is concerned would be _the
period_ , the menstruation cycle. The correlation with the moon phase is
probably no coincidence I guess, and I somewhat doubt it's magnetic, but
suppose it's gravitational - which is an external factor. Anyhow that's not
experienced time keeping. Rather it may be used for time keeping, or rather
other externals like hair growth for example or feeling tired. " _I 'm tired,
it must be late huh_" is what I was talking about more than " _It 's late, I
must be tired_" though the later should be imperative for me, right now (here
near the Greenwich Line).

And for the 1930s exp you posted, i suppose its just the energy reserves of
whichever crucial part for the older were either fine tuned or not extendable,
whereas a 20 year old (risk inclined) college student can still pull
allnighters twice a weak and other endurance exercises. Physical fitness peaks
before the 30s. And a prof is someone working with the mind so the experiment
itself without intense physical strain is taxing enough. They self tested,
that alone is probably a huge warningsign.

But i was mainly refering to plants that can be brought to flower by light
cycle manipulation. Now I kind of wonder how mimosa reacts circadian anyway
... and I guess it's due to relative changes in the air humidity.

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agumonkey
I read in Von Bertalanffy GST book that different species have a different
perception frame rate. Some birds or reptiles wouldn't perceive visual change
until some specific fps. Very disturbing.

~~~
posterboy
That doesn't make sense the way you put it. Movement isn't measured in fps.
But yeah, same for flies. Move very slowly and they won't react to an
approach. Then, whack!

~~~
agumonkey
I think he used Hertz in his book, so yeah not fps but still frequency.

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ianai
I thought it was known to be the superchiasmatic nucleus?

~~~
matheusmoreira
The SCN is responsible for the circadian rhythm and thus a component of the
neuroendocrine system. The article is about a possible neurological basis for
the subjective perception of time.

~~~
ianai
Perception of time and circadian rhythm are very related.

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matchagaucho
TLDR; Animals would make terrible Drummers.

~~~
mikhailfranco
But many drummers are infamous animals.

