Why the Net Matters

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.

(in Spanish / En Español)

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

newscicover2 New Scientist magazine recently featured our time perception research as their cover story.

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