As people prepare to do something crucial, time often seems to slow down. For example, as a football receiver watches the ball leave the quarterback's hand, the ball appears to be moving relatively slowly toward him—even as everything else occurs quickly. (click below to read more)
A study has made sense of this puzzle. Researchers determined that when people prepare to move, their ability to process visual information speeds up. As a result, everything else seems to move more slowly.
In one of the experiments, participants pressed a key for as long as a white disc appeared on a screen. A hollow target then replaced the disc. In some trials, the participants had to release the key and touch the target. In others, they were told to keep pressing the key. In each case, they had to report how long the white disc stayed visible, compared with the previous trials in the experiment. Researchers found that the volunteers perceived the durations to be longer if they were preparing to move instead of keeping still.
"Ready Steady Slow: Action Preparation Slows the Subjective Passage of Time," Nobuhiro Hagura, Ryota Kanai, Guido Orgs and Patrick Haggard, Biology Letters (August)
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