DEMYSTIFYING OUR PERCEPTION OF TIME

A recent article in the Sunday Star discussed how one's perception of the passage of time works. In particular, it gave a fascinating scientific explanation of how this perception changes as we grow older.

According to Professor Adrian Bejan from Duke University, it all has to do with how our brain processes visual information.

"Our eyes operate like cameras constantly taking clicks or frames that are transmitted from the eyes to the brain. When we're young everything we see is new to us; there's an avalanche of stimuli. So each second, we're processing many mental images. That's why when we think back to our younger years, there's a tendency to think of that time as moving more slowly. 

As we age and our body grows in size, the pathways that transmit information from our eyes to our brain are longer and the speed of travel is slower due to degradation, meaning we capture fewer "frames per second." between sunrise and sunset. That creates the perception that time is moving more rapidly - or the sunset has arrived quickly.

Unusual events, such as tragedies like this one we are now experiencing ...(are) an opportunity for your clicking brain to capture impressions and news that you have not been expecting.That is why, because of the multitude of news, the same brain has the feeling that sunset will arrive later than usual.

We remember the past in a punctuated fashion - the points of punctuation are the clicks of greatest novelty and least expectancy."

I love the camera analogy. It explains so much.

Expanding on it, older cameras are often out of focus and lack features such as zoom lenses or accurate aperture settings further inhibiting the picture taking process. 

But what the article doesn't explain is why some old folks seem to view the world in monochrome while others still see the full rainbow.

In fact, I think that has little to do with one's vision but depends more on the size of one's heart.