How running tricks your brain into overestimating time
PsyPost••health
Key Points:
- A study published in Scientific Reports found that running alters time perception, with distortions driven by the cognitive demands of controlling movement rather than physical exertion.
- Participants overestimated the duration of visual stimuli during running, walking backwards, and dual-task conditions compared to standing still, with distortions around 7-9%, despite differing heart rates.
- The lack of correlation between heart rate and time distortion suggests that attentional and motor control efforts, not physiological changes, primarily influence time perception during physical activities.
- Participants maintained consistent precision in their time judgments across conditions, indicating a reliable but biased perception of duration.
- Researchers caution against attributing timing biases during exercise solely to physiological factors and highlight the need to consider cognitive influences in sensorimotor studies;
