Scientists: Time slows down by 20% while running

Time slows down while running: scientists reveal an unusual effect of consciousness. Researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology have discovered that people perceive the flow of time differently while running. Surprisingly, the cause of this phenomenon turned out to be not physical effort, but the cognitive work of the brain when coordinating movements. The discovery was published in the authoritative scientific journal Scientific Reports.

As reported by TUT.AZ with reference to Scientific Reports (SciRep), our subjective perception of time rarely corresponds to reality and is subject to distortions in everyday life. The scientific community had previously noted that various types of physical activity affect the perception of duration, but the question remained open: is this related to physiological processes or cognitive load.

To solve this puzzle, scientists organized an experiment involving 22 young volunteers. The subjects were asked to memorize a visual stimulus lasting two seconds, after which they had to evaluate the duration of other stimuli under various conditions.

The study was conducted in four scenarios: normal standing position, intensive running on a treadmill with a load of about 80% of maximum heart rate, walking backward, and performing an additional visual memory task while standing. To objectively assess physical exertion, participants' heart rates were recorded.

The data obtained proved to be quite revealing: in situations requiring concentration, subjects systematically overestimated the duration of stimuli. While running, a time interval of 1.8 seconds was perceived as a full two seconds—subjective time stretched by almost 9%. When walking backward and when performing a dual task, the distortion was about 7%.

Notably, the degree of time perception distortion did not correlate with heart rate: despite significantly higher physical exertion during running, temporal distortions remained comparable to other scenarios. This observation convincingly proves that the main factor in changing time perception is cognitive load, not the physiological stress of the body.