"Why Do You Say That Time Passes Faster or Slower?"

Abstract

The conference Why Do You Say That Time Passes Faster or Slower?, delivered by Dr. Sylvie Droit-Volet, addressed the psychological and cognitive mechanisms involved in the subjective perception of the passage of time, with particular emphasis on the influence of emotions, attention, memory, and bodily states. The conference focused on the distinction between judgments of the passage of time and duration estimation, emphasizing that these two processes rely on different psychological mechanisms. Drawing on various experimental and ecological studies, Dr. Droit-Volet examined the influence of age, task difficulty, emotional states, and interoceptive awareness on the subjective experience of time. The findings presented challenge the notion that time is necessarily perceived as passing faster with aging and suggest that, in the present moment, emotions play a central role in the perception of the acceleration or slowing of time. Furthermore, the contextual theory of the duration of the self was presented, proposing that the perception of the passage of time depends on the effects of context on an individual's internal states and on their awareness of these changes. The presentation distinguished between two mechanisms involved in the temporal experience: the slowing of time, primarily associated with boredom, negative emotions, and bodily signals, and the acceleration of time, linked to happiness, attention, and engagement in meaningful activities. Finally, the developmental trajectories of these processes and the role of memory in the evaluation of extended durations were examined. This approach contributes to a deeper understanding of the temporal experience from a psychological perspective by integrating cognitive, emotional, and interoceptive processes.