Your perception of time is skewed by what you see
你对时间的感知被你所看到的东西所扭曲
Features of a scene such as size and clutter can affect the brain’s sense of how much time has passed while observing it.
场景的特征，如大小和杂乱程度，会影响大脑在观察时对时间流逝的感知。
How the brain processes visual information — and its perception of time — is heavily influenced by what we’re looking at, a study has found.
一项研究发现，大脑如何处理视觉信息，以及它对时间的感知，受到我们所观察事物的重大影响。
In the experiment, participants perceived the amount of time they had spent looking at an image differently depending on how large, cluttered or memorable the contents of the picture were. They were also more likely to remember images that they thought they had viewed for longer.
在实验中，参与者感知他们观看一幅图像所花费的时间不同，这取决于图像的大小、杂乱程度或容易记忆程度。他们也更有可能记住那些他们认为自己观看时间更长的图像。
The findings, published on 22 April in Nature Human Behaviour1, could offer fresh insights into how people experience and keep track of time.
该研究结果于4月22日发表在《自然-人类行为》1杂志上，可以为人们如何体验和跟踪时间提供新的见解。
“For over 50 years, we’ve known that objectively longer-presented things on a screen are better remembered,” says study co-author Martin Wiener, a cognitive neuroscientist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. “This is showing for the first time, a subjectively experienced longer interval is also better remembered.”
“50多年来，我们已经知道，屏幕上呈现的时间较长的事物更容易被记住，”该研究的合著者，弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯乔治梅森大学的认知神经科学家Martin Wiener说。“这是第一次表明，主观上经历较长时间的间隔也更容易被记住了。
Sense of time 时间感
Research has shown that humans’ perception of time is intrinsically linked to our senses. “Because we do not have a sensory organ dedicated to encoding time, all sensory organs are in fact conveying temporal information” says Virginie van Wassenhove, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Paris–Saclay in Essonne, France.
研究表明，人类对时间的感知与我们的感官有着内在的联系。“因为我们没有专门编码时间的感官器官，所有的感官器官实际上都在传达时间信息，”法国埃松巴黎萨克雷大学的认知神经科学家Virginie van Wassenhove说。
Previous studies found that basic features of an image, such as its colours and contrast, can alter people’s perceptions of time spent viewing the image. In the latest study, researchers set out to investigate whether higher-level semantic features, such as memorability, can have the same effect.
先前的研究发现，图像的基本特征，如颜色和对比度，可以改变人们观看图像所花费时间的感知。在最新的研究中，研究人员着手研究更高级别的语义特征，如易记性，是否也会产生相同的影响。
The researchers first created a set of 252 images, which varied according to the size of the scene and how cluttered it was, then developed tests to determine whether those characteristics affected the sense of time in 52 participants. For example, an image of a well-stocked cupboard would be defined as being smaller but more cluttered than one featuring an empty warehouse. Participants were shown each image for less than a second, and asked to rate the time they were shown a specific image as ‘long’ or ‘short’.
研究人员首先创建了一组252张图像，这些图像根据场景的大小和混乱程度而变化，然后进行了测试，以确定这些特征是否会影响52名参与者的时间感知。例如，一个储藏丰富的橱柜的图像将被定义为比一个空仓库的图像更小但更杂乱。参与者被展示每张图像不到一秒钟，并被要求将他们看到特定图像的时间评为‘长’或‘短’。
When viewing larger or less-cluttered scenes, participants were more likely to experience time dilation; thinking that they had viewed the picture for longer than they actually did. The opposite effect — time constriction — occurred when viewing smaller-scale, more cluttered images.
当参与者观看较大或不那么杂乱的场景时，他们更有可能经历时间扭曲，认为自己观看的图片比实际时间更长。而在观看较小比例、更杂乱的图像时，则出现了相反的效果——时间收缩。
The researchers suggest two possible explanations for these distortions. One posits that visual clutter is perceived as harder to navigate and move through, whereas the other says that clutter impairs our ability to recognize objects, making it harder to mentally encode the visual information. These difficulties could both lead to time constriction.
研究人员为这些扭曲提出了两种可能的解释。一种假设视觉混乱被认为更难导航和穿越，而另一种假设则认为混乱会损害我们识别物体的能力，使得心理编码视觉信息更加困难。这些困难都可能导致时间收缩。
Memorable sights 令人难忘的景点
To investigate whether more-memorable images could have an effect on time perception, the researchers showed 48 participants a set of 196 images rated according
to their memorability by a neural network. Participants not only experienced time dilation when looking at more-memorable images, but were also more likely to remember those images the next day.
为了研究更易记忆的图像是否会影响时间感知，研究人员向48名参与者展示了一组196张图像，这些图像根据神经网络的记忆力评分。参与者不仅在观看更易记忆的图像时经历了时间扩展，而且在第二天更有可能记住这些图像。
The images were then applied to a neural-network model of the human visual system, one that could process information over time, unlike other networks that take in data only once. The model processed more-memorable images faster than less-memorable ones. A similar process in the human brain could be responsible for the time-dilation effect when looking at a memorable image, says Wiener. “It suggests that we use time to gather information about the world around us, and when we see something that’s more important, we dilate our sense of time to get more information.” This adds to converging evidence that suggests a link between memorability and increased brain processing, says van Wassenhove.
然后将这些图像应用于一个人类视觉系统的神经网络模型，该模型可以随着时间推移处理信息，而不像其他网络只能一次接收数据。该模型处理更易记忆的图像比不太易记忆的图像更快。维纳说，当看到一个令人难忘的图像时，人脑中可能会出现类似的过程，导致时间扩展。“这表明我们利用时间来收集关于周围世界的信息，当我们看到更重要的东西时，我们会扩展我们的时间感来获取更多信息。”van Wassenhove说，这增加了趋同证据，表明易记性与大脑处理增加之间存在联系。
Questions remain about exactly how people perceive time and how this interacts with memory. “We’re still missing pieces of the puzzle,” says Wiener. The next step would be to validate the findings with a larger sample of participants, and to refine the model of the visual system, he adds. Van Wassenhove suggest that future studies could use neuroimaging to study brain activity during perception tests. Eventually, Wiener hopes to test whether the brain could be stimulated artificially to influence the way it processes time and memory.
关于人们究竟如何感知时间以及这与记忆的互动方式还有许多问题有待解答。“我们仍然缺少这个谜题的一些片段，”维纳说。他补充说，下一步是用更多的参与者样本验证这些发现，并完善视觉系统的模型。Van Wassenhove建议，未来的研究可以使用神经影像学来研究感知测试期间的大脑活动。最终，维纳希望测试是否可以通过人为刺激大脑来影响其处理时间和记忆的方式。