More memorable images appear to stretch time, study suggests
If every day appears to go in a blur, try seeking out new and interesting experiences, a study has suggested, after finding memorable images appear to stretch time.
A study has discovered that the more memorable an image, the more likely a person is to think they have been looking at it for longer than they actually have. Such images were also easier for participants to recall the next day.
Prof Martin Wiener, a co-author of the study who is based at George Mason University in the US, said the findings could help improve artificial intelligence that interacts with humans, while they also offer opportunities to tweak our perceptions. “One idea could be, well, if we can lengthen a perceived interval while showing an image to a person, that image may be remembered better 24 hours later,” Wiener said.
Human Behaviour, Wiener and colleagues described how they showed scenes of six different sizes and six different levels of clutter to participants for between 300 and 900 milliseconds, and asked them to indicate if they thought the duration was long or short.
The results from two groups, totalling about 100 people, revealed participants were more likely to think they had been looking at small, highly cluttered scenes – such as a crammed pantry – for a shorter duration than was the case, whereas the reverse occurred when people viewed large scenes with little clutter, such as the interior of an aircraft hangar. The team suggest time dilation might serve a purpose, enabling us to gather information about the world around us. “When we see things that are more important or relevant, like things that are more memorable, we dilate our sense of time in order to get more information,” Wiener said.
“What it suggests is that if we want time to feel like things are [taking] longer, we need to seek out things that are themselves more memorable.”