Wednesday is Indigo Blue

Time Perception: Why do we say time seems to "slow down" during a traumatic experience?

My lab focuses on how the mind percieves time during moments of crisis.   We often hear that "time slows down" when we experience something like a fall from a roof, or a car accident.  Why is this?  See below for a number of media appearances where I discuss this phenomenon and what we think is really happening.

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David discusses how time could very well be a construct of the human mind in this episode of "Through The Wormhole."

      

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Listen as the guys at RadioLab bring the whole experience of free-falling, and how it seems to make time slow down, to life.

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Here's an experiment in which my lab studied time perception by dropping volunteer subjects from a 150 foot high tower.  Free fall.  Subjects are going 50 miles per hour when they hit the net.

 

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Want more details?  The results of our experiment are published here.

newscicover2New Scientist magazine recently featured our time perception research as their cover story.

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From the Blog

  • Time perception on the Discovery Channel
    Time perception on the Discovery Channel

    Watch an experiment in which we studied time perception by dropping volunteer subjects from a 150 foot high tower.  Free fall.

  • The science of de- and re-humanization
    The science of de- and re-humanization

    Why do groups of people inflict violence on unarmed neighbors? (Germany, Rwanda, Darfur, Nanking....). Here's the neuroscience point of view.

  • Discussing dreaming with Henry Rollins
    Discussing dreaming with Henry Rollins

    I recently spent an evening speaking at the Rubin Museum in NYC with punk rock legend, writer, and spoken word artist Henry Rollins.  We discussed the origin, meaning, neuroscience, and bizarreness of dreams. 

  • Why I am a Possibilian
    Why I am a Possibilian

    Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story is true or not true. I call myself a possibilian. Find out why.

Newsflashes

Eagleman and Brian Eno bring Sum to Sydney Opera House

In June, 2009, David Eagleman collaborated with musician/producer Brian Eno to perform a musical reading of Sum to 1,000 people at the Sydney Opera House. In May of 2010 they performed together again to 1,200 people at the Brighton Dome in England. Stay tuned for further performances.

Emily Blunt reads for the Sum audio book

Hear the actress Emily Blunt (Young Victoria, Devil Wears Prada) read "The Cast" from Sum. She is one of the dozens of terrific actors who read for the audio book.

Why the Net Matters on BBC Today

Listen to an interview on BBC's Today Programme regarding the new iPad book Why the Net Matters.

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