美国国家公共电台 NPR--How did COVID warp our sense of time? It's a matter of perception

How did COVID warp¹ our sense of time? It's a matter of perception

Transcript²

The pandemic did something strange to our sense of time.

For Ruth Ogden, lockdown spent confined to her 3-bedroom duplex in Manchester, England, with a newborn and two boys home from school, "was like climbing a mountain that never ended." Time stood still, she says, filled with children moaning of boredom³, and her yearning⁴ for bedtime.

"It was absolute hell," Ogden says. "I could not believe there were 24 hours in the day; it dragged like a massive concrete block behind me."

And yet, with the pandemic receding⁵ a bit, Ogden says the distortion of that time feels different. "It seems like it didn't really happen," she says. "Like: I can't really remember anything about it, so in some ways it seems quite short."

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The COVID era distorted time perception around the world

Ogden is a psychologist at Liverpool John Moores University, and her experience of distorted time led her to conduct a series of surveys around the world throughout the pandemic.

The results underscore just how variable our sense of time can be. It can be altered by emotion, social satisfaction, stress, mental engagement and even our culture.

"Time is incredibly flexible and we all experience it in different ways," Ogden explains.

In Iraq, for example, people she surveyed almost universally felt that time slowed. But half of U.K. respondents who experienced time distortion felt it moved faster than in what we've come to think of as "the before times." In Argentina, younger, physically⁶ active women felt time passed faster than older men. Ogden says it's hard to pinpoint⁷ the root cause of those differences, because there are so many different variables. Living in a war-torn area, or under strict lockdown policies, could help explain the differences in each country. "When life changes, time changes," Ogden says.

Emotions fiddle⁸ with time perception, too

At an individual level, though, the perception of time has a great deal to do with one's emotional state. And, of course, the pandemic caused lots of upheaval⁹ in that department — including for Arthur Wade¹⁰ Young III, a veteran mail carrier in Chevy Chase, Md.

Worrying about stuff every day — I think that kind of slowed things down for me. You know, fear takes control of our lives.

Arthur Wade Young III, Chevy Chase, Md.

Normally, Young keeps to a schedule: Every weekday, for the past 12 years, he's walked a delivery route of 530 homes, with a navy blue satchel¹¹ slung¹² across his chest — except in 2020. That first year of the pandemic dealt Young multiple blows.

It started with an emergency appendectomy, followed by surgery on a torn knee ligament that kept him sidelined from work. He and his wife separated, and he worried constantly for his two school-aged daughters. Then, Young had three bouts¹³ with COVID. The first time it happened, he feared for his life.

What made all that worse, the customarily happy-go-lucky Young says, was having too much time to ponder his anguish¹⁴: "Worrying about stuff every day — I think that kind of slowed things down for me. You know, fear takes control of our lives."

How our emotions such as fear influence our sense of time is a complex process that science only partially¹⁵ understands, says Ed Miyawaki, a Harvard neurologist; there is not a single place in the brain involved in timekeeping, but several. One place near the optic nerve tracks time, for example, which is how people sense time of day by daylight. Dopamine-rich networks in the brain teach us to anticipate rewards, he says, and the cerebellum, which allows us to time our movements, also has its own kind of clock.

"There's an emotional clock, there's a memory clock, there are all these kinds of clocks," Miyawaki says. However, they aren't particularly synchronized¹⁶; the brain has no master clock. There's just complex interplay among our senses that act on our sense of time. That's partly what gives variability to our sense of time — why new experiences, like traveling to a foreign land, seem to stretch the day out, or why hours seem to vaporize for a kid engrossed¹⁷ in a video game.

Miyawaki, who is also a psychiatrist¹⁸, says sometimes you can even see the differences in someone's internal sense of time. He's treated severely¹⁹ depressed²⁰ patients who move extremely slowly, almost like sloths²¹, because their emotional state has so altered their timing²². "The idea that time is just one monolithic²³ thing is just wrong," says Miyawaki.

'We're aware of the fragility of time'

After decades of research, he says, he concludes our sense of time comes from something beyond the brain. "The question is not just one of science, but also one of psychology²⁴, sociology, philosophy," he says. "It has to do with so much more than what dopamine neurons are doing."

That resonates with Ruth Ogden, the psychology professor in the U.K. She says the pandemic alerted many of us to time's relationship to our sense of health and wellbeing. In fact, it seemed to call our attention to time itself.

"We're aware of time. We're aware of the fragility of time. We're aware of what happens when your time to do the things you want is taken away from you," she says. "And that's the real thing that will have changed, is how people value time."

That holds true for Arthur Wade Young, the mail carrier, who says he got through recent difficult times by becoming more spiritual. He also stopped eating meat, fish and dairy products and start working out, transforming his body and his health.

He resumed working a year ago, and got his rhythm and his paychecks back, he says, and that's made time feel like it's moving swiftly again. "Way quicker than the beginning of that pandemic," Young says.

Yet he also says he now looks at his life differently, having brushed up against his emotional rock bottom, then resurfacing. "I appreciate things more," he says; he makes sure he has a sense of spirituality and purpose every day.

"I try to put my time into my kids. I try to put more time into reading and stuff like that," he says, and all that makes him savor²⁵ every moment.

1 warp   

vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见

参考例句：

• The damp wood began to warp.这块潮湿的木材有些翘曲了。
• A steel girder may warp in a fire.钢梁遇火会变弯。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

4 yearning   

a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的

参考例句：

• a yearning for a quiet life 对宁静生活的向往
• He felt a great yearning after his old job. 他对过去的工作有一种强烈的渴想。

5 receding   

v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• Desperately he struck out after the receding lights of the yacht. 游艇的灯光渐去渐远，他拼命划水追赶。 来自辞典例句
• Sounds produced by vehicles receding from us seem lower-pitched than usual. 渐渐远离我们的运载工具发出的声似乎比平常的音调低。 来自辞典例句

6 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

7 pinpoint   

vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置

参考例句：

• It is difficult to pinpoint when water problems of the modern age began.很难准确地指出，现代用水的问题是什么时候出现的。
• I could pinpoint his precise location on a map.我能在地图上指明他的准确位置。

8 fiddle   

n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动

参考例句：

• She plays the fiddle well.她小提琴拉得好。
• Don't fiddle with the typewriter.不要摆弄那架打字机了。

9 upheaval   

n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱

参考例句：

• It was faced with the greatest social upheaval since World War Ⅱ.它面临第二次世界大战以来最大的社会动乱。
• The country has been thrown into an upheaval.这个国家已经陷入动乱之中。

10 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

11 satchel   

n.(皮或帆布的)书包

参考例句：

• The school boy opened the door and flung his satchel in.那个男学生打开门，把他的书包甩了进去。
• She opened her satchel and took out her father's gloves.打开书箱，取出了她父亲的手套来。

12 slung   

抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往

参考例句：

• He slung the bag over his shoulder. 他把包一甩，挎在肩上。
• He stood up and slung his gun over his shoulder. 他站起来把枪往肩上一背。

13 bouts   

n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作

参考例句：

• For much of his life he suffered from recurrent bouts of depression. 他的大半辈子反复发作抑郁症。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was one of fistiana's most famous championship bouts. 这是拳击界最有名的冠军赛之一。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

14 anguish   

n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼

参考例句：

• She cried out for anguish at parting.分手时，她由于痛苦而失声大哭。
• The unspeakable anguish wrung his heart.难言的痛苦折磨着他的心。

15 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

16 synchronized   

同步的

参考例句：

• Do not use the synchronized keyword in Managed Objects. 不要在管理对象上使用synchronized关键字。 来自互联网
• The timing of the gun was precisely synchronized with the turning of the plane's propeller. 风门的调速与飞机螺旋桨的转动精确同步。 来自辞典例句

17 engrossed   

adj.全神贯注的

参考例句：

• The student is engrossed in his book.这名学生正在专心致志地看书。
• No one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper.没人会对一份晚报如此全神贯注。

18 psychiatrist   

n.精神病专家；精神病医师

参考例句：

• He went to a psychiatrist about his compulsive gambling.他去看精神科医生治疗不能自拔的赌瘾。
• The psychiatrist corrected him gently.精神病医师彬彬有礼地纠正他。

19 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

20 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

21 sloths   

懒散( sloth的名词复数 )； 懒惰； 树獭； （经济）停滞。

参考例句：

• Mummies of pleistocene ground sloths, with original skin, hair, tendons and claws have been found. 还发现了保存原有皮肤，毛发，腱和爪的更新世时期地面树懒的木乃伊。
• He was inspired by fossils of armadillos and sloths. 犰狳和树懒化石让他获得了灵感。

22 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

23 monolithic   

adj.似独块巨石的；整体的

参考例句：

• Don't think this gang is monolithic.不要以为这帮人是铁板一块。
• Mathematics is not a single monolithic structure of absolute truth.数学并不是绝对真理的单一整体结构。

24 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

25 savor   

vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味

参考例句：

• The soup has a savor of onion.这汤有洋葱味。
• His humorous remarks added a savor to our conversation.他幽默的话语给谈话增添了风趣。