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Mind

Negative emotions really do make events seem to last longer

When people are shown pictures evoking negative emotions, they remember time as passing more slowly, however, this is only true when the negative images are seen after a neutral one

By Simon Makin

17 August 2023

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Being in an emotionally negative state could affect how someone judges the time between two past events

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We have all felt time drag during challenging periods, but there was little scientific understanding of how our emotional states influence our perception of time until recently. Now, it seems there really is a link.

Jingyi Wang and Regina Lapate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, investigated whether emotional fluctuations shape people’s memories of the timing of events.

Eighty people looked at pictures that either typically induce a negative emotion, such…

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