Why Time Slows Down during an Accident

After an accident, people often report that it felt a lot longer than it actually could have been in real time. Time seemed to slow down during the event. We tried to conduct a safe experiment in our laboratory to simulate a dangerous situation. We had participants look at a screen on which circles either moved on a collision course toward the participant or moved away from the participant. At the same time, we recorded the participant’s brain activation with a brain scanner. When the circle moved toward the participant, that event was judged to last longer than when the circle moved away. This is the effect we wanted to produce: in a situation of “threat,” events seem to last longer. The brain activation showed that an area in the middle part of the brain was especially activated, a region that is often active when events have something personal to do with the participant. In our case, a threatening stimulus approaching is the event that is related to the participant. This is the first study to show the regions of the brain that are associated with a perceived slowing down of time during a threatening situation. REVIEWED BY: