Think back to life in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted governments to impose travel restrictions, lockdowns, and other measures meant to keep people safe from a then-novel virus rampaging around the world. You, like many others, probably felt that time was passing slower than ever before when you were living without many of the forms of human contact that had previously filled everyday life.
Now, a large team of scientists from around the world has captured what it was like to live in “Blursday,” as they call it: to have it feel as though time ground to a halt due to feelings of isolation. They published those findings, alongside other effects of distorted time perception too slight for an individual to notice, last week (August 15) in Nature Human Behavior.
The Scientist spoke with coauthor Maximilien Chaumon, a researcher at the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Épinière ...
