You often feel that weekends fly by quickly. In contrast, time seems to stretch like a rubber band when you’re stuck in endless meetings.
This is an example of time distortion—a phenomenon where time can pass faster or slower than it actually does.
Why do you sometimes feel like time has stopped when the clock hands freeze? (Illustration: Internet).
Another visual example of time distortion is the “stopped clock illusion.” This occurs when you suddenly shift your gaze to a traditional clock with a second hand.
This action can make the second hand appear to be still for over a second, contrary to our usual perception of time.
Kielan Yarrow, a psychologist at the University of London, explains that the primary factor contributing to the stopped clock illusion, as well as time distortion in general, is the rapid movement of the eyes from one object to another.
Such movements are called “saccades.” Yarrow explains that they can create problems for our brains, making them feel surprised by the surrounding events.
“It’s like moving the camera on your phone,” this expert clarifies. “If you move your phone fast enough, you can see a large streak of motion, and the whole world seems to move.”
When the eyes move quickly, there are gaps in the visual information that they cannot process. Our brains respond by “filling in” those gaps to avoid the phenomenon of “motion blur.”
The stopped clock illusion highlights the limits of reconstructing images of the past. Specifically, if the clock hands move during a saccade, we won’t see them moving because the brain’s reconstruction relies on what it perceives at the end of the signal transmission process. In other words, you will see the second hand seemingly standing still while it is actually in motion.
When the brain’s expectations conflict with reality, time distortion occurs. (Photo: Popsci).
This illusion was demonstrated in an intriguing experiment involving video games. The experiment required a group of subjects to play regular video games, but they were unaware of a slight delay that had been introduced into the game when they pressed the buttons on the controller.
This delay was just enough for our brains not to notice the difference, and it immediately processed the information to match this state. As a result, the players all shared the perception that their actions on the controller occurred seamlessly on the screen.
However, when the delay was abruptly removed, the players immediately felt as if the images on the screen occurred before they pressed the control button.
Similar to the stopped clock illusion, the brain’s expectations conflict with reality, leading to a distorted perception of time.
Yarrow notes that these effects typically last only a very short time, as our brains quickly synchronize with the output signals to obtain accurate information.
Nonetheless, such experiments clearly demonstrate that our perception of time is inconsistent. Many events in daily life can affect how we experience time.
“You may see time moving fast, slow, or even stopping. However, you will quickly return to reality and never get stuck in it,” Yarrow states.
