Dear Science,
During a recent car accident, I could swear time slowed down. I
could totally see the airbag deploy, feel the seatbelt pull tight along
my chest in slow motion. My friend says this is bullshit. Does time
actually slow down when you get into a car accident?
Eyes Accidentally Opened
Not really—at least according to a recent study by Chess
Stetson, Matt Fiesta, and David Eagleman.
First, the experimenters determined if time actually does slow down
in our minds during a scary event. Off to the amusement park!
Volunteers were sent into a hundred-foot drop tower that ends in a net.
(“This ride is the tallest in the park at 16 stories high… That’s
right—no bungee, no parachute, just you and the air. And the
landing is smooth as silk.”) The fall takes about two and a half
seconds; the Texas trio asked the volunteers how long they
thought they fell, and on average, people thought the fall
took about a third longer than it actually did.
Okay, it’s no big surprise that time seems to slow down during most
any scary moment. But it could actually be from two different reasons.
Is it like a movie, where during a critical moment our brains get amped
up, and we observe more in a given moment of time? Or do we simply
remember more detail from emotionally charged memories, filling in
after the fact? How could the study tell the difference?
Enter the wrist chronometer of doom! A little LED display,
attached to the forearm of the fallee, displayed a pair of digits by
alternating between dark digits on a bright background and bright
digits on a dark background. At a certain threshold speed of switching,
it all ends up looking like a blank bright field—the display is
switching too quickly to see the numbers anymore. For each person, the
experimenters figured out this speed and set the chronometer to be a
tiny bit quicker than the threshold. If the brain really does zip up
during a scary moment, during the fall one could read the numbers that
were changing too quickly just moments before. Could the volunteers do
it? Nope. So, the extra detail we remember after something terrifying?
Probably made up by our brains to fill in that extra third (or so) of
perceived time.
Science can commiserate, however. During most of his bicycle
accidents, time seemed to slow down for him as well—every
crunching bone in cinematic detail. Seems we’ve both had a trick
played on us by our brains. 
Briskly Yours,
Science
Send your questions to
dearscience@thestranger.com.
