Time Perception - PsyFile

How does the human brain keep track of time? Interview with Luke Jones from the University of Manchester. More from Luke about time perception coming soon.
University of Manchester School of Psychological Sciences: www.psych-sci.m...
Videos by Brady Haran
www.bradyharan....

[@Ledon177]

At the end of the video we can read "more soon". Looks like Brady's sense of time is not that good.

[@raza838]

I wish he went into more detail about how time seems to move along so slowly when you're bored or unexcited and it moves along seemingly fast when you are having fun or you're doing something exciting.

[@maybe_monad]

Just found this channel - it's amazing how broad Brady's scope is. Great start for another outstanding channel. Thank you.)

[@imaginarycastle]

Musicians often use reference songs to identify the tempo of a song (measured in beats per minute, bpm) with great accuracy. For example, the tempo of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean is 120 bpm, and thus, it can be used to identify 60 (seconds), 120, 180 (triplets) bmp and tempos based on other multiples as well.

[@persistentaura]

Brady I think you derserve a nobel prize for education or something! You have tought a lot of people why science (and learning) is fun and interesting, motivated a lot of people to go to college/university (including me) or to keep on learning even after their studies and showed us other branches of science can be just as interesting as the ones we usually focus on. Best thing on the entire internet! Thank You!

[@politicomdk]

Is this supposed to be a new channel on psychology? :) That would be great fun ! Looking forward to learn more from you guys :)!

[@KemaTheAtheist]

Well, I, for one, thank you very much for putting out so much great, educational content free of charge. The world could use many more sources just like you.

[@ccwdev]

Normal heart rates range from 60 to 100 beats per minute, where lower is healthier. 60 beats per minute, you don't say? Your comment made me think, too. Our perception of time could definitely be related to the heart rate, and our ability to recognize slight time differences could have helped us notice underlying heart conditions as well. I think this is a plausible evolutionary theory for human time perception! :)

[@SamBolton]

I am incredibly excited for this new channel. Being a psychology undergraduate at Manchester, I was so surprised to see someone I knew on here. Keep up the good work Brady, I can see this channel becoming at least equal in popularity as Numberphile or Sixty Symbols.

[@DynamixWarePro]

Nice channel, looking forward to more vids! Never thought about how we perceive time before, but I realized that I (often) underestimate tasks I usually do.

[@GMCSlizz]

Lastly, I tend to think of psychology as a bridge between the 'hard' and 'soft' sciences, as it attempts to explain social, cognitive and behavioural phenomena (generally relegated to the domain of 'soft' sciences) using biological principles. Of course, few in psychology actually take such a broad approach, but the field as a whole may be thought of as such.

[@ognog3489]

I love Brady's questions :))

[@Doublkic]

being a drummer for over 30 years this is interesting...Time signatures in music and being able to count them. I think some progressive bands drummers would be a cool study on how we keep everything together in our head

[@sinosec112358]

The people you want to test are Chefs. We have to keep multiple times in our heads. I work a line alone two nights a week and can have up to 20-25 items cooking at one time. I have to time them to cook to order and come out all together while holding coversation with the waitstaff, management and porters. I don't count in my head, I just feel it out. Great video.

[@dyanpanda7829]

It does! For complex motor task, the cerebellum will mediate the movement. Certain neurons act like fuses with other cells that take their cue when action potentials reach certain points along the axon. My analogy is a long fuse with TNT on different parts of the fuse line, and so go off with a high degree of synchrony. The cerebellum controls this for things like typing, but also with balance. (All things are much more complex in the brain than it sounds)

[@profspop]

Time certainly slows if you are waiting for something. It seems to me it is about being involved with the situation. I you are participating you have a sense of progression.

[@Sandul666]

After reading the entire conversation between you two, I can say James is correct. But hey, I'm not a professional physicist, I just watch a lot of discovery/science/history channel. And now i watch Psyfile and Veritasium.... much more to the point.

[@TheBjcn]

I like the Tardis in the background xD

[@MaestroAlvis]

I just can't help but imagine going to this university and randomly bumping into Brady on his way to some other department to make a cool video.

[@PijusONLINE]

In addition to that other answer, when we're young we experience most of things in life for the first time and, conversely, live within the confines of our daily routines once we grow up. This contributes to the issue as well

[@WePlayTheFox]

I agree with Pruitt, that a great number of basic tasks require a precise internal metronome. The tone experiment mentioned here reminds me of birdsongs, and how recognizing the distress calls of local birds, mammals etc. would have been indispensable to our arboreal ancestors. This may have become even more important as hominid vocalizations became more diverse and complex.

[@AzureFlash]

My guess would be that the brain differentiates those short "tenths of a second" durations by comparing the lengths of the electrical patterns created by the memories of both sounds, or the time it took to create that electrical pattern.

[@swill128]

Thank you for adding a psych channel and considering psychology an actual science Brady!

[@ksimmonsASU1]

Something interesting I noticed. When asked how long it will take "them" to do something, a subject will underestimate something familiar, I posit because they literally are spending less time on it, while allowing it to be automated. where as something new requires EXTRA concentration, thus increasing the actual mental time spent on the specific task. The perceived time is directly linked to how much time they are spending on it mentally.

[@TheKrijara]

When going over the selection pressures I expected to hear something about how we determine the direction of sound.Sounds from any direction will enter both ears, then our brain is able to compare and determine which ear received the sound last, and by how much of a delay, which allows us to triangulate position. This is why when we hear something we're not sure of, we tilt our head to one side with a slight twist, changing the distance of each ear to wherever the sound came from.

[@PolyrhythmUniverse]

Neurons that fire together wire together. I agree with this movie. You could play some polyrhythms with a clock. It feels amazing to change between close speeds.

[@Neceros]

On top of that, the less things surprise us (meaning we learned nothing from it) the less our brain notes them. This noting of memories is really how our brain works and perceives time, so when you're young you get many many memories, so everything seems to be quick, while time is slow.

[@xway2]

I've heard that the first time you experience something, it will feel like it takes longer, and then it gets shorter and shorter as you do it more and more (and obviously, as you get older, there's less new stuff going on). I suppose this is related to that example he gave about estimating the duration of things you do a lot.

[@jasonvanw]

That's absolutely crazy you can tell the difference between 1/10 of a second so easily. Though now that I think about it when I make (very bad) electronic music, getting the timing down to that level is absolutely essential to the flow of the music.

[@spookyarda]

Great video and I really want a sixtysymbols video on the same subject, perception of time from the physics side. The idea of "time flowing" seems natural to us but physics don't tell us time is something that flows or one dimensional. I mean there is space-time continuum but how we don't get that as human beings.

[@makexxwar]

From what I understand, our perception of time in memories has to do with how many new memories we are making. When we are younger, everything is new, so we make more copies of those memories. As we get older, our brain makes less copies of memories as everything becomes familiar. Its because we have less copies of memories as we get older that time appears to move faster.

[@Atrix256]

Man great video, I can't wait to see more from this channel!

[@alex_on_the_web]

What I think is that yes, we can differentiate between a tone 1.1s and 1.3s but only if we heard both in the audio retention duration of the ear (that vocal loop), I don't think we'd perceive them anything different if there were 30 seconds between them... The other thing is about the long term time perceiving... I think it's all about how excited your brain is, and how many memories you make during that time... A long session of studying may FEEL long because you've learnt a lot... :-)

[@MrPianoJames]

Thanks Sandul. They are two of my favourite channels also! Peace x

[@Nairozet]

Time is related to how willing you are to be where you are. More willing, then time seems to move faster. Hence the saying, "Time flies when you are having fun." Also, if you are focussed on doing a tedious task, time can fly as well, even when it's not fun. Which means, if you are willing to be there, time flies. .... I am interested in what other subjects are going to be done in here.

[@retepaskab]

Moving your muscles (jumping, throwing things) needs perfect timing.

[@cristianfcao]

Nice addition Brady!! I LOVE social psychology, if you have people doing SP at Nottingham please make some videos. There are many very interesting subjects to cover. My absolute favorites are prejudice and morality.

[@fuunguus]

The perception varies based on amount of stimuli. In a gun fight your adrenaline levels will ensure heightened awareness of your surroundings. This also kinda works for long term memory. If you do nothing but watch sit home and watch tv all day, days, weeks and months will feel like they pass faster. But if you are out traveling and experiencing new things it will feel slower because you remember more details of your experiences.

[@GMCSlizz]

I am not one of the professors, but I have studied psychology, specifically behavioural neuroscience, as well as biology, for the past 5 years. I will come out right away and say that I believe evolutionary psychology to be a valid field, albeit a misunderstood one.

[@Benjabenja77]

Where is the sequel video? This is fascinating!

[@GMCSlizz]

If we accept the premise that psychological traits boil down to a biological basis (i.e. they not due to some otherworldly construct, such as a soul) and these traits have some genetic basis, then the principles underlying evolution may act upon psychological traits as well. That is the underlying logic of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists often take a comparative approach, such as examining cognitive behaviour in non-human primates and comparing it to that of our species.

[@MadyWinter]

Sounds like we don't have one clock, but many. I guess especially with sound we need a lot of processing there already to seperate the frequencies etc. and timing is probably quite important as well. And then maybe with memories its kind of just adding up the events and judging their duration coming up with an estimation of the overall amount of time spent. Then, with the familiar road, maybe all the events just blur together so you forget certain steps and can't add them up anymore.

[@mendali]

Looking forward to this new channel Brady!!

[@KemaTheAtheist]

That's actually a matter of perception because as you grow older, each new increment of time is proportionally smaller than before. It's also suggested that it has to do with "novel" experiences. You have a lot more new experiences as a child than as an adult than as an elderly person.

[@BatesKatherine]

We need more of these psychology videos!!!

[@TMFlesh]

Maybe it has less to do with any particular mechanism in your head counting off the milliseconds and more about the processing of information. When you hear a sound you brain has to process the information transmitted by your ears. A longer tone would contain more information and thus take longer to process. It is possible that we are simply picking up on those slight differences in info, or maybe we can perceive the time between the start and stop of the inflow of info(the tone in this case)

[@The_SnowPixie]

I use phenology to get my concept of what time it is. Such as the sun, constellations or Earth's Moon. The time constructed for the timelines is getting a bit behind the time according to the sun or constellations.

[@noxure]

"People aren't typically good at judging how long something is going to take." I keep telling that to my project manager. :)

[@BzerkerNinja]

great first video of a new channel. look forward to more

[@John_Mason]

Ah, looks like another cool video series from Brady.

[@VictorAndScience]

The channel's logo is brilliant Brady.

[@mikieswart]

This makes me think of all those times I've put something into the microwave, walked away, and came back when there's only a few seconds left. Winning.

[@JasonPruitt]

Doesn't seem surprising its so accurate, considering all the timing involved in even basic tasks, like walking, or grabbing an object. Time as a relative measure of movement thru space compared to other objects, we're using it constantly. It keeps you from slamming into a drinking glass, would be the difference between running, and walking. And of course music, or catching a ball, or any sport like that.

[@AlaskaSkidood]

I am wondering what the time perception of the brain has to do with music? Can we tell the difference between human metered music and computer metered music? How come some people hold a more steady beat than others? Also how does music effect our sleep i.e. Mozart makes babies smarter; slow jazz puts me to sleep, some songs play in dreams (like movie soundtracks) etc. Maybe a video about the psychology of music?

[@rich1051414]

Also, time as we experience it is an abstract interpretation, which would take many parts of the brain to visualize, although one's interpretation of this visualization would be relative to his personal experiences in the past and present, the actual image of time is basically the same, but I don't think it would be as easy as pointing at a single center and saying that part of the brain is the clock.

[@christophelandry3283]

Great video... can not wait to see more

[@ericsbuds]

great vid brady, very interesting! thanks to luke for sharing!

[@RMoribayashi]

Years ago I had a small cube that received atomic time signals from WWV in Colorado. The station broadcasts a reference tone interrupted by a tick every second. I left it on in my room for long periods of time, which did not make me the most popular person in the house. Even now after 40 years, if I want to count seconds I just remember that sound. I eventually hacked it to pick up the BBC World Service instead, much to the relief of my family.

[@werdnativ]

An actual, meaningful response in the KZbin comments... Thanks! I think I understand evo-psych the same way myself; that is, psychology is based on biology, and biology implies evolution. As modern humans we're smart enough to deny aspects of our nature, but there's no getting away from the fact that we are still Animalia.

[@shonshrinks]

I once fell asleep in a night flight while I was listening to a song I know really good, and it felt as if I'm still hearing it, only on "fast-forward".

[@jameinel]

Could also be the same "familiar road" effect. As you have experienced more things, more things can be easily 'slotted' into the familiar rather than actively creating detailed memories of the new event. And with fewer details, thus the overall effect was faster.

[@ReeferReas]

Was watching this, and was like- seems like something Brady would do! And oh yea, it was Brady

[@jdgrahamo]

Good work Brady.

[@sjcwoor]

yay Awesome so far. Brady's never mentioned this channel

[@organicate]

Looking forward to more!!

[@MarcusfotosDe]

It was about Time for a Psychology-Channel ;-)

[@williamjenkins4913]

It has to do with memory. You tend to only remember new and unique things. When you are young almost every thing is new and you remember alot of each day. So when you look back there is "more" there. When you get older then there might be only 1 or 2 memorable things a week and when you look back you feel as if that year was shorter.

[@HenkJanBakker]

Most curious to me is as you get older time seems to last shorter. I remember when I was a kid that a year was immense. The time it took to your next birthday was extremely long. Now I wonder why I took the trouble of taking down the Christmas tree as it is almost time to put it up again.

[@BritishRobotSean]

This explains how I'm such a master guesser at guessing what time it is. I'm not good at much else though.

[@daanwilmer]

Nice, talking about time with some time-travelling machines (Dalek armour and TARDIS) in the background. Interesting talk, I subscribed!

[@KatPettitCherry]

I noticed the Tardis, too. :) Thanks for the new channel.

[@wadeh2o]

I believe we humans keep track of time when an event is relative to another. To be more specific, lets say you have a visitor at your desk while listening to the radio. The visitor leaves for some length of time. If you are asked to give the length of time the visitor has been away, you could reference the radio and the number of songs that have been played since they left. For example if six songs have played, with an estimate of 3 min 30 sec per song, the person has been away about 21 min's.

[@jesuschavez127]

Time Is a human invention to stay organized or other

[@EddyScbr]

Long hair, a university professor, a TARDIS model in the background, he seems to like somewhat philosophical questions (like about the perception of time).... I think I just found a new hero of mine...

[@mooviies]

There is also a theory saying that when you are younger you live a lot of new experience and your brain is more focuse on things for a better learning. So the time seems to pass very slowly. But older you grow, your have less new experience and your brain become less focuses on things so time seems to pass faster.

[@JWY]

My father told me of his post-grad rat maze experiment where he wanted the rats to learn to wait for a certain time before proceeding. Well, rats apparently can't wait, it's just not in them to let time pass unused. But to find this he had to realize that a rat can learn to listen for the faintest 'click' of a relay - even if it's relocated into another room and far to faint for a human to hear.

[@DaScribbler]

Seriously tho, you are ridiculous prolific. I really enjoy pretty much all of it.

[@OdysseyHouseBand]

Awesome video but i would also have liked to hear his opinion on if people perceive time differently from each other and how significant that can be.

[@Player5xx]

from what i understand of the subject its a pretty simple answer. when you are 2 a year totals half your whole life. when you are 30 a year is only a thirtyith of it. so it seems like a less significant amount and passes faster. also the first years of your life are full of milestones. born, walk, talk, school, driving, graduation, college, etc. your later life isnt full of as many significant events

[@6417893265q784256128]

and sound emitter location ... you have a point

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Could ‘time’ be a physical process that can be explained by physics? Based on just two postulates: 1 The quantum w-particle function Ψ or probability function represents the forward passage of time itself with the future coming into existence photon by photon. 2 Is that quantum uncertainty ∆×∆p×≥h/4π that is formed by the w-function is the same uncertainty we have with any future event within our own ref-frame that we can interact with turning the possible into the actual!

[@johnmcho]

Does anyone else think it is completely awesome that they are talking about time with a TARDIS in the background?

[@Luxegr]

This channel is awesome, and you guys are awesome.

[@AntoineGrondin]

I love the style of the editing. And interesting content as well. Good work.

[@jiberish001]

A new Brady channel about psychology? Umm, yes please! :-]

[@Zepheriah]

I love all the weird and genius people Brady gets hold of for his videos. Their hair in particular.

[@Synazrael]

I'm digging the Dalek in the background.

[@KemaTheAtheist]

1.) It's a hypothesis, not a theory. 2.) I think it's more likely it was something developed out of necessity for increased survival, like being back to camp before dark or has to do with hunting and reaction times of animals. They have to wait until they know that their attack will be fast enough that in the short distance they could travel before the animal reacts puts them in range to take the animal down, or something along those lines.

[@BogdanManciu]

I recognized Brady's Voice ( numberphile & periodicvideos )

[@Kntrabssi]

Brady, you did an entire video about how important sleep is!

[@EnigmaNL]

I was kind of hoping they would talk about how days seem to go by faster as you grow older. I've talked to a lot of people about this and most of them felt the same. Days were much longer as a child and as an adult even a week seems like a reasonably short period of time.

[@Melthornal]

The one thing that absolutely blows my mind is that I can set a clock to go off at a particular time, and I will know it is about to go off. I can do this with alarm clocks and wake up, from deep sleep, right before the clock goes off, within 5 minutes or so. How? How does this happen? If I am outside doing gardening and such and I know a game will start at a specific time, I will instinctively come in at that time. How? I'm sure a lot if not most people can do this, and it blows my mind.

[@MrRolnicek]

I think it works like an actual computer processor ... any part of it (brain or the processor) if you make it do a certain calculation, you know how long it's going to take to return the result and that can be diffused to any area of the brain, of course excitement would then work as overclocking and would slow the time for us. (I know the analogy kind of falls apart since the processors have a fixed clock time to do things but just imagine that you take that away)

[@lawfam]

Really it's how the brain processes environmental data. As an infant, your brain is processing everything. Taking it all in and learning from it. As you get older, learned data starts getting moved into a more automatic part of the brain, a part that makes assumptions and bypasses detailed processing. The older you are, the more assumptions your brain makes. Same mechanism that allows you to drive home from work and not remember it. The less detailed processing you have to do, the faster time is

[@CongletonDirector]

oh is this a new channel Brady... fantastic as usual :)

[@jonnies]

I also think another cool aspect of human time perception not mentioned is the body clock. The way I can wake up and look at my alarm clock in the morning literally 5 seconds before it was due to go off... or wake up on the train just before it arrives at my station.

[@Kalevala87]

In this vein you should make a video discussing interactions in magnitude processing across different modalities and domains.

[@Hobo_X]

I have thought about this before, and I wondered if it has to be parts of our brain that aren't active during sleep. Because when you're asleep, when you wake up it feels like almost no time passed by, like your sleep is done in a few seconds. So the part that perceives the time surely isn't active during sleep. You should ask him if that's how they look for it.

[@89mrwrightable]

Nice video. Next ones looks great!

[@JamesKing2understandinglife]

I find the human brain time perception very interesting. Short amounts of time are something I had not given much consideration. Human perception of very long amounts of time I had been thinking were beyond our mental capacity to get a feel for. Of course when we deal with times longer than our life times and especially in multiples of our lifetimes it quickly gets to a conception I cannot get my mind around,... which I think is about average. I need more time information Please. Thanks. Jim