#真相来了 #
You walk in a deep alley, the street lamp next to you flashes from time to time, and occasionally you hear the sound of "nourishing" electricity. Suddenly, you hear a noise behind you and run forward madly. At that moment, you feel that time has stood still, and it has passed so slowly. Finally, you rushed out of the alley, which was only 10 meters long, and came to the crowd. At this point, you are in a cold sweat. After relaxing, you suddenly have a question: what just happened, obviously only a dozen seconds have passed, but it feels like a century has passed.
Time is so wonderful, sometimes you will feel that time passes quickly, chasing a drama for an afternoon, as if only a few minutes have passed; sometimes you will feel that time passes very slowly, "a day is not seen, such as three autumns apart"... Why do we think that time is fast and slow? Does the flow rate of time vary?
Psychologists are also interested in this, and for more than 100 years, they have tirelessly sought the truth about time. Cruelly, time is still the little girl who is half-covered by the pipa, and there are many unsolved mysteries. However, there is also good news, although psychologists' research on time is like a modern version of "blind people touching elephants", but in the end they still have a doorway.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > time: the physical world is unchanged, and the psychological world is fast and slow</h1>
Everyone has two worlds, the external physical world and the internal psychological world. The strange thing is that the two are not one-to-one correspondence. The "blue black & platinum" dispute that once swept the Internet reflects this. A celebrity posted a dress on the Internet and asked everyone, "What two colors do you think this dress is?" Then, the netizens exploded, and the flag was clearly divided into two factions, one thought it was white and gold, and the other thought it was blue and black.
In the physical world, the skirt is the skirt, it is objective; in the mental world, everyone sees different colors, it is subjective. In fact, as early as 1860, the psychologist Fechner proposed Fichner's law, indicating that there is a difference between the physical world and the psychological world. For time, it is no exception, the time of the physical world is objective, but the time of the mental world is subjective. In the physical world, time doesn't slow down for anyone; in the mental world, everyone has their own rhythm.
Neuroscientist David Eagleman has done an experiment with yaoming that proves this. He had participants fall from a height of 45 meters, back-to-back. The participants experienced about 2.5 seconds of freefall.
In the process of falling, they were not idle. They have to stare at the timer, which flashes numbers at a very fast frequency that normal people certainly can't see clearly. If participants could see the numbers clearly during the descent, they would be damned. There are only two possibilities, either physical time slows down, or the participant acquires some sort of superpower under extreme conditions, in technical terms "tachypsychia."
In fact, there are no miracles. Participants didn't see the flickering numbers; but participants felt dropped twice as long as they really did 2.5 seconds. Based on this, Igman concludes that in a state of tension, we feel that time becomes longer or that time becomes slower, but this so-called "slowing down of time" is only a subjective processing of consciousness, not a real perception.
This is not very similar to the scene at the beginning, in some cases we overestimate the length of time. While, in the physical world, time is fair and uniform for everyone, in the mental world, time perception is uneven—sometimes we feel that time passes quickly; sometimes, we feel that time passes slowly.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > who is manipulating time perception</h1>
So why is time perception so weird? Who stole our time and made us feel fleeting, and who added time to us and made us feel that time was slowing down?
Psychologists have conducted research on this and put forward one theoretical model after another. Some have been lost in the long river of history, and some have been sewn up and repaired, accepted by people. Zakay et al.'s proposed attentional-gate model is one of them.
Before understanding the model, imagine a rushing river with a "switch" at its source, and when the switch is connected, the water flows into the channel; there is a "gate" in the middle of the river, and the larger the gate opens, the more water passes; and the lower reaches of the river, there is a reservoir.
It's easy to think that "switch", "gate" and "flow rate" all affect the amount of water stored in the reservoir. The earlier the switch is connected, the more water is stored; the larger the gate is opened, the more water is stored; the faster the water flows, the more water is stored in the same time.
The so-called attention gate model is very similar to "river storage". The model assumes the presence of a metronome and accumulator in the brain. Metronomes are like water sources that emit pulses at a certain frequency; accumulators are like reservoirs that store pulses. The brain's perception of time is measured by pulses, and the more pulses in the accumulator, the longer we perceive.
Pulses from the metronome to the accumulator, through the gate, switch, they will affect the number of pulses in the accumulator
Floodgates – The more opened, the more pulses pass through
Switch – the earlier it closes, the more pulses pass through;
Rate – The faster the frequency at which a pulse is emitted, the more pulses pass through.
So, what affects the floodgates? attention. The more we pay attention to time, the larger the gate opens, the more pulses that pass through the gate into the accumulator, and the longer the time will be felt; on the contrary, if we pay attention to other things, the gate will open smaller, the fewer pulses will pass, and the time will feel short.
What affects the switch? Again, notice that the sooner we start paying attention to the time, the sooner the switch closes. The same amount of time, the more pulses pass through.
What affects the rate? The degree of arousal of the body, the higher the degree of arousal, the faster the flow rate. For example, you are concentrating on studying, someone slaps you on the back, you are frightened, the heart beats faster, secretes adrenaline, sweating, in this case, it is high arousal; on the contrary, you have fought up and down your eyelids, very sleepy, and the body's arousal is very low at this time.
Around this theory, psychologists have designed various experiments to verify it. For example, some researchers asked participants to complete tasks of different difficulty (counting numbers, doing calculation problems, reasoning) while timing, and found that the more difficult the task, the more attention they occupied, the more they ignored the time and felt that the shorter the time. Research on brain imaging also supports this, with researchers finding that attention affects time perception activates the brain's pre-auxiliary motor areas and right inlet caps.
In short, the note gate model has been tried and tested, and it is supported by a lot of evidence. We can take it for the time being as the truth of time perception. But don't forget, scientific research is a process of gradually approaching the truth, and it can only be regarded as a stage of correctness.
Back to the opening scene, when we walk in the dark alley, when we hear the noise, we will frighten the spirit, we will secrete adrenaline, we will break out in a cold sweat, which is equivalent to improving the body's wake-up level, the level of wake-up is increased, the frequency of pulse emission will increase, it will overestimate the time, and it will feel that time passes very slowly.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > secret technique - time manipulation</h1>
One would wonder what this would do? The pleasure of seeking the truth is the greatest benefit, and usefulness is only a byproduct of science. However, in the spirit of "the reader is God" service attitude, since you have this need, I will try to meet it!
We might as well open our minds together— since our perception of time is subjective, can't we manipulate it: let it pass faster when the queue is boring; let it pass a little slower when it is "spring supper"; and even let time "slow down" and learn more.
(1) Shorten the time - let the difficult time slip away quietly
You must have had the experience of "waiting", or waiting for a late train, or waiting for your girlfriend who is about to leave... The taste of waiting is too uncomfortable, as Beckett wrote in Waiting for Godot, "Hope is delayed, and those who wait for the bitter death." ”
So how can you make waiting feel better? With the foreshadowing ahead, the answer is ready to come. As long as the "gate", "switch" or "rate" is manipulated, time will pass faster and the taste of waiting will be better.
How do you manipulate the "floodgates"? The more attention we give to time, the greater the degree to which the floodgates open, the more pulses accumulate, and the more we feel that time passes slowly. Time is like an arrogant little girl, but it wants to come against you. The more you pay attention to it, the more it cares, the slower it passes; the more you "don't bird it," the faster it passes.
Therefore, when waiting, the more often you look at your watch, the more you will feel that time passes slowly. On the contrary, as long as you focus on other things, brush dramas, play "Glory of the King", time will pass "poof".
How do I manipulate the "switch"? Ditto, don't look at the watch, don't care about the time.
How do you manipulate the "rate"? This is difficult, the rate of pulse is determined by the degree of arousal of the body. The higher the body's arousal, the slower time passes. So, while waiting, don't stimulate yourself and let your body "fall asleep". As mentioned above, when waiting, to brush dramas and play games, then according to the principle of "reducing arousal", it is best not to watch ghost movies, violence, pornography and other movies. Playing games, in the same way, don't be too exciting.
(2) Extend the time - the same time, do more things
Now is not the epidemic time management, everyone wants to live a day into 25 hours, do more things. So, when our physiological arousal improves and we feel that time has become longer, can we use this "extended" time to do more?
The answer is, yes!
The British time psychologist Weldon did a series of experiments to prove this. He first listened to a 5-second ticking sound to the experiment participants, which made the participants feel that the time was prolonged, and then asked the participants to do some multiple choice questions. Surprisingly, participants were faster at finding the right answers. He also did other research and found that listening to ticks beforehand allowed participants to remember more letters. That is to say, the tick also increased the participants' memory capacity when the time was extended.
Although these changes are very subtle, Weldon came to a bold conclusion: ticking can speed up the biological clock, increase the beat rate, and give us more time to remember and process information.
There's a piece of evidence to say, no more evidence, and I don't know if it's because the ticking clock speeds up the biological clock, giving us more time to memorize and process information; or because the ticking, which improves the arousal and speeds up our ability to remember and process information. But at least we know that there's a phenomenon where ticks make us feel like time is getting longer and allows us to do more in the same 60 seconds.
This phenomenon may give you a hint: instead of managing the length of time, it is better to manage the quality of time. Instead of managing time, it is better to increase the awakening, speed up the biological clock, and let yourself do more things in the same time.
What exactly is time? Until now, scientists have no definitive answer. Confucius said that the deceased is like a sif, not giving up day and night; Zhuangzi said that between the heavens and the earth, life is like a white colt crossing the gap; Augustine said: What is time? No one asked me, I was clear, someone asked me, I wanted to explain, I was confused. Luckily, after reading this article, you know more than they do.
The next time you hear someone lament the uncertainty of time and brag that you are a master of time management, I hope you will think of this article, like a wise man, smiling.
Resources
David Eagleman. (2019). The Story of the Brain (Lu Jia, translation). Zhejiang: Zhejiang Education Publishing House, Zhanlu Culture.
Alan Burdick. (2020). The Quality of Time (Li Yingsong, translation). Guizhou: Guizhou People's Publishing House, Motie
Lake, J. I., LaBar, K. S., & Meck, W. H. (2016). Emotional modulation of interval timing and time perception. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 64, 403–420.
LIU Jingyuan, & LI Hong. (2019). The effect of state anxiety on time distance perception: The mediating effect of cognitive evaluation and attention bias. Chinese Journal of Psychology, 51(7), 747–758.
Zakay, D., & Block, R. A. (1997). Temporal Cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 6(1), 12–16.