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Time Distortion

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Time flies when you are having fun, as the old adage says, may have some real psychological value behind it. Do angry faces seems to resonate for longer periods of time as compared to happy faces? How does this distortion occur with the time passage of time identical in both scenarios? We frequently encounter emotional facial expressions in our daily lives. These facial expressions help us to judge an individual’s attitudes and feelings. But is there really a time distortion between angry and happy faces, and how does this time distortion occur? In 1977, John Gibbon described the Scalar Expectancy Theory in animals. Gibbons created a model for the passage of time using internal pulses, these pulses are sent out by the pacemaker. The pacemaker emits pulses at regular intervals without any disruptions. Pulses flow from the pacemaker into the accumulator through the switch. When the switch is closed the pulses enter the accumulator, and stop when the switch is open. The accumulator makes a determination on the length of the event depending on the amount of pulses in the accumulator from the event. Delays with the opening and closing of the switch can manipulate the amount of …show more content…

The researchers looked at time perception, as it related to the facial expression of happy, angry, and sad versus neutral. Participants were asked to judge whether the faces presented were viewed were more similar to long or a short time duration. The time facial stimuli presented were actually presented in in-between time durations. Participants were found to overestimate time for emotional faces over neutral faces. These results supported an increase in the internal clock which increased pacemaker speed. Results also showed a greater time dilation in participants making judgements about same gender faces as compared to different gender

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