Last Updated on July 7, 2026 by Staff
Time is something that we all experience. It is really personal. Sometimes a few minutes can feel like they are lasting forever and at times hours can disappear in what feels like just a few moments.
Scientists have known for a time that the way we feel about time is affected by our emotions, what we are paying attention to, how old we are, what we remember and the things that are around us.
Now there is a study that was published in Scientific Reports that found something else that can change the way we think about time. The sounds that are in the background.
Researchers in Japan found out that sounds that are moving towards us or away from us can really change how long we think something lasts even if we are not paying attention to those sounds.
This study helps us understand more about how our brain works with the information it gets from our senses.
It also shows that the way we think about time is always being changed by things in our environment that we do not even realize are there.
Listening Experiment
To see how sounds that are moving can affect the way we think about time researchers got 48 university students to be in an experiment.
The students were. Wore headphones so they would not be distracted by anything they could see. So they would only pay attention to the sounds they heard. They were divided into three groups.
One group heard background sounds that seemed to be getting closer to them. The second group heard sounds that seemed to be moving and the third group heard sounds that were all mixed up and did not seem to be moving in any direction. The background sounds were made using a software called the vOICe, which changes visual information into sound patterns.
While the background noises were playing the students also heard tones that were different lengths in the foreground. Their job was to ignore the background sounds and only pay attention to how they thought each tone lasted.
Surprising Results
After each tone was finished the students pressed a key on the computer keyboard for long as they thought the tone had lasted.
The researchers then compared what the students thought the tones lasted with how they really lasted. The results were really clear. People who heard sounds that were getting closer to them thought the tones lasted longer than they really did. On average they thought the tones lasted 15% longer than they actually did.
People who heard sounds that were moving away from them thought the tones were shorter than they really were. They thought the tones lasted 6% less time than they actually did. The group that heard the mixed up sounds thought the tones lasted in between the other two groups but it was not a big enough difference to really matter.
The important thing is that the students were told to ignore the background sounds but those sounds still affected how they thought about time. This shows that our brain is always working with the information it gets from sounds even when we are not paying attention to them.
Why It Happens
The researchers think they know why this happens. They think it is because of how humans have evolved over time.
A time ago sounds that were getting closer to us often meant danger like an animal that might hurt us or someone who might be a threat. If we could detect these dangers quickly we would be more likely to stay safe. When our brain hears a sound that is getting closer it gets ready to react. This makes time seem to slow down so we have time to do something about the danger.
On the other hand sounds that are moving away from us usually mean the danger is going away. Our brain does not have to work as hard. Time seems to speed up. The study suggests that this way of thinking about time might have developed to help us stay safe.
Brain and Time
The experiment also showed something that scientists already knew called the Vierordt Effect. The students thought short sounds were longer than they really were and they thought longer sounds were shorter than they really were.
This is because our memory can affect how we think about time. The researchers think their study helps us understand more about how our brain works with information from our senses to think about time.
They think it is not about what we are paying attention to but also about the things that are happening in the background. This could be really useful in things like reality video games and even in cars and airplanes.
If we understand how background sounds affect how we think about time we might be able to make things that help us pay attention and make decisions. The study shows that time is not always what it seems. Even sounds that we are not really listening to can affect how we think about time and that shows how much our brain is always working to understand the world around us.
Time is really flexible. It can be affected by all sorts of things including background sounds. The way we think about time is always being changed by the things that are happening around us. That is something that is really important to understand.