If each day seems to go by in a blur, researchers suggest looking for new and interesting experiences, after discovering that memorable images seem to stretch time.
Researchers have previously found that while loud experiences seem to last longer, focusing on a clock can lengthen or delay time.
Researchers found that the more memorable an image was, the more likely people were to think they had been looking at it for longer than they actually were. Such images will be easier for participants to remember the next day.
Co-author of the study, Professor Martin Wiener, based at George Mason University in the US, said that given what the study had previously shown, the findings could help in the development of improved artificial intelligence that interacts with humans. While this is possible, it also offers an opportunity to fine-tune human cognition, he said. Non-invasive brain stimulation can be used to lengthen perceived intervals.
“One of the ideas is that if you can increase the perceived interval when you're showing people an image, that image might be better remembered 24 hours later,” Wiener says. .
Writing in the journal Nature Human Behavior, Wiener and his colleagues showed participants scenes of six different sizes and six different levels of clutter for between 300 and 900 milliseconds, and asked them if they thought the duration was longer or shorter. I explained how I asked them to answer what they thought.
Results from two groups totaling about 100 people showed that participants were more likely to think they were looking at a small, very cluttered landscape (a crowded place like a pantry) for a shorter amount of time than they actually were. However, it turns out that the opposite happens when people are watching. Large-scale scenes without too much clutter, such as the interior of an aircraft hangar.
The research team also conducted an experiment with 69 participants and found that images that previous research had found to be more memorable were more likely to be judged as having been displayed for longer than they actually were. discovered.
Importantly, the effect appeared to go both ways.
“We also found that the longer the subjective duration of an image, the more likely you were to remember it the next day,” Weiner said.
When the team performed an analysis using deep learning models of the visual system, they found that more memorable images were processed faster. Furthermore, the speed at which images were processed was correlated with the amount of time participants thought they were looking at the images.
“Images may be more memorable because they are processed faster and more efficiently by the visual system, which facilitates the perception of time,” Weiner says.
The researchers suggest that time dilation may have a purpose, allowing us to gather information about the world around us.
“When you see things that are more important or relevant, such as things that are more memorable, your sense of time expands to give you more information,” Wiener says.
However, this study does not rule out the possibility that the brain also has an internal clock to keep track of time, which could explain how different aspects of experience are perceived as synchronized. He pointed out that.
Weiner also said the memory findings have broader implications.
“What that suggests is that if you want time for things to feel like they are now, [taking] The longer we need to look for something more memorable in itself. I mean novel, interesting and new to us here,” he said. “This is why vacations seem to last much longer than, say, an equivalent amount of time in everyday life.”
