Appetizing Imagery Puts Visual Perception on Fast Forward

The idea that things in our environment, or even our own emotional states, can affect how we experience time is a common one. We say that time “drags” when we’re bored and it “flies” when we’re having fun. But how might this happen?

An experiment by Kevin H. Roberts of the University of British Columbia hypothesized that our motivation to approach positive stimuli or experiences would make us less sensitive to temporal details. Change in these stimuli or experiences would, therefore, seem relatively smooth, similar to what happens when you press ‘fast forward’ on a video. Our desire to avoid negative stimuli or experiences, on the other hand, would enhance our sensitivity to temporal details and would make changes seem more discrete and choppy, similar to a slow-motion video. In support of the hypothesis, it was found that people rate images containing positive content as fading more smoothly compared with neutral and negative images, even when they faded at the same rate.

Read the complete article from the Association for Psychological Science here: Appetizing Imagery Puts Visual Perception on Fast Forward