Time Warped

March 11, 2013
Whether you conceive of time as a “breeze” or a “crushing weight,” Hammond’s book is worth yours. Focusing on the experience of time rather than its “objective reality,” the award-winning science writer and BBC broadcaster demonstrates how the timely coordination of brain, nerves, and muscles is essential for everything from reading time tables to understanding spoken language. But, as everyone knows, time rarely seems to pass at a constant rate—it seems to slow when you are stressed, and go too fast while you are in vacation mode. As such, Hammond explores how time perception (or “mind time”) is “elastic”; investigates the various ways in which people conceive of time in spatial terms; and examines the various causes for the experience of distended or contracted time—depression, ADHD, chemical processes in the brain, and even temperature can fool us into the belief that time is speeding up or slowing down. Along the way, readers are introduced to curious characters like Bob Petrella, whose hyperthymesia makes it impossible to forget anything, and Michel Siffre, a French speleologist who spent months living underground to determine whether humans have an internal clock. This lively introduction to the psychology of time perception is an intriguing take on the fluidity of reality. Agents: David Miller, the Garamond Agency; Will Francis, Janklow & Nesbit (U.K.) Ltd.

April 1, 2013
Science broadcaster Hammond (Emotional Rollercoaster: A Journey Through the Science of Feelings, 2007) reports from the front lines of research into the subjectivity of the experience of time and its weird elasticity. As the author demonstrates, our experience of time is particularly mind-bending: a complex mixture of memory, attention and emotion, which, when in synchronicity, give time its familiar flow. However, when one or more are out of kilter, our perception of time can warp dramatically. Hammond has an aptly liquid writing style, one that encourages engagement and makes the narrative memorable. Memory appears to play a significant role in our time experience, for studies indicate that the gathering of memories slows time and that forsaking new memories speeds time up. Focusing intensely, as in a scary episode, in which you block out other reference points that convey time's passage, slows time, but paying acute attention can also make time fly. Hammond tours the latest advances in neuroscience, but some of the material feels radically preliminary and is not always entertaining or groundbreaking. The author, however, ably captures both the details of research--"recent experiments suggest that a moment lasts between two and three seconds, which aligns not only with what we see in poetry, but also in music, speech, and movement. We seem to segment activities into a space of two or three seconds"--and broad visualizations of time. Her survey of investigations into how we perceive the future, from picturing the grade we will receive on an exam to suicide plans, feels almost too fragile to behold. Hammond also shows how readers can change their relationships with time, examining this challenge through a variety of problems with time perception, including "Time Is Speeding Up," "Too Much to Do, Too Little Time" and "A Poor Memory for the Past." Occasionally uneven but mostly enjoyable, thought-provoking reading.

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May 1, 2013

Radio host Hammond explores various phenomena related to the perception of time by drawing on research from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and biology. She investigates why time seems to pass more quickly as one ages, and passes more slowly during fearful situations and/or following social rejection, and how subconscious time perception plays a critical role in everyday tasks. This is an ideal read for those looking for science-based theories of time perception without the scientific jargon, and will appeal to readers with a curiosity about the role of time in their everyday lives. Hammond suggests time perception is altered among individuals with depression or ADHD; this insight also makes the book valuable for psychologists and counselors. Managers or professionals concerned with time management will also benefit. VERDICT Despite the common belief that time moves at a constant pace, Hammond demonstrates how life's circumstances can make minutes seem an eternity and decades the blink of an eye.--Ryan Nayler, Native Counselling Svcs. of Alberta, Canada

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