Flies See the World In Slo-Mo, Say Researchers

An anonymous reader writes "'The smaller an animal is, and the faster its metabolic rate, the slower time passes for it, scientists found. This means that across a wide range of species, time perception is directly related to size, with animals smaller than us seeing the world in slow motion.' No wonder it took so long to grow up!" Here's the original paper.

Comments

Seniors see the world at blazing speeds

[Russ1642]

Sitting in the left lane going ten under the speed limit while the world screams by.

Re:Seniors see the world at blazing speeds

[dpilot]

Actually no. He's quoting the "pediatrician's rule of thumb", approximately.

Final height as an adult can be guessed by doubling a boy's height at 2 years, or a girls height at 18 months. Worked pretty well for both of my kids. (one of each)

Re:Seniors see the world at blazing speeds

[Solandri]

You joke, but I really think there is something to this.

When I was in first or second grade (1970s), the U.S. was in the middle of its metric conversion program. We were taught the size of a cm vs an inch, the weight of a gram vs. an ounce, etc. I came up with some equivalencies on my own to help me remember everything. A cm was about the width of my thumb at the time. An inch was the length of of my folded middle finger. A foot was about the length of of my fist to my elbow... (Obviously none of these work anymore because I was a lot smaller back then.)

Then we got to time. How long is a second? I tried counting "one one-thousand, two one-thousand" in my head like my teacher had suggested. It was too fast. I eventually came up with a "one (pause) and a two (pause) and a..." chant which (for me) accurately measured out each second.

I'm in my 40s now and if I try my old timing chant, it's too slow. Each second I count takes nearly 2 seconds real-time. The "one one-thousand, two one-thousand" mnemonic now works for me. This also matches my memories of staring at the second hand on the clock in class, waiting for the time to pass so school would end. I watch a clock (with a second hand) today and it seems to move almost twice as fast as I remember it moving back then.

My timing hasn't changed. I started playing piano in second grade. When I listen to old tape recordings of songs I still play, my tempo hasn't changed. The only explanation I can come up with is that my verbal and visual processing has slowed down with age. My piano playing has had the tempo reinforced every time I hear a recording of a piece, so it gradually (to my brain) sped up over the years to keep pace with my slower processing.

Re:Makes complete sense

[Ogive17]

You haven't seen my reaction time when I spot a spider.

Re:So Ents see life fly by?

[ekgringo]

I think you've got it backwards and Tolkien was right. As I remember, the Ents were complaining that the much smaller hobbits were being too hasty. Their Entmoot took several hours just to get through the meet & greet stage and it took them a day or two to come to a decision to do something.

Re:So flies are 4 times as twitchy as we are?

[Cyko_01]

just because their brain processes things faster it doesn't mean they can move fast enough to get out of the way. Consider the size of a flyswatter in relation to the size of the fly

I thought this was well known

[wonkey_monkey]

I honestly though this was common knowledge already. Maybe I'm a little slow.