Illusions by James Sully (story reading txt) 📕

that this mode of measurement is by no means the simple and accurate process which it at first seems to be. In point of fact, there is something like a constant error in all such retrospective measurement. Vierordt has proved experimentally, by making a person try to reproduce the varying time-intervals between the strokes of the pendulum of a metronome, that when the interval is a very small one, we uniformly tend to exaggerate it in retrospection; when a large one, to regard it, on the contrary, as less than it actually was.[117]

A mere act of reflection will convince any one that when he tries to conceive a very small interval, say a quarter of a second, he is likely to make it too great. On the other hand, when we try to conceive a year, we do not fully grasp the whole extent of the duration. This is proved by the fact that merely by spending more time over the attempt, and so recalling a larger number of the details of the period, we very considerably enlarge our first estimate of the duration. And this leads to great discrepancies in the appreciation of the relative magnitudes of past sections of time. Thus, as Wundt observes, though in retrospect both a month and a year seem too short, the latter is relatively much more shortened than the former.[118]

The cause of this constant error in the mode of reproducing durations seems to be connected with the very nature of the reproductive act. It must be borne in mind that this act is itself, like the experience which it represents, a mental process, occupying time, and that consequently it may very possibly reflect its time-character on the resulting judgment. Thus, since it certainly takes more than a quarter of a second to pass in imagination from one impression to another, it may be that we tend to confound this duration with that which we try to represent. Similarly, the fact that in the act of reproductive imagination we under-estimate a longer interval between two impressions, say those of the slow beats of a colliery engine, may be accounted for by the supposition that the imagination tends to pass from the one impression to the succeeding one too rapidly.[119]

The gross misappreciation of duration of long periods of time, while it may illustrate the principle just touched on, clearly involves the effect of other and more powerful influences. A mere glance at what is in our mind when we recall such a period as a month or a year, shows that there is no clear concrete representation at all. Time, it has been often said, is known only so far as filled with concrete contents or conscious experiences, and a perfect imagination of any particular period of past time would involve a retracing of all the successive experiences which have gone to make up this section of our life. This, I need not say, never happens, both because, on the one hand, memory does not allow of a complete reproduction of any segment of our experience, and because, on the other hand, such an imaginative reproduction, even if possible, would clearly occupy as much time as the experience itself.[120]

When I call up an image of the year just closing, what really happens is a rapid movement of imagination over a series of prominent events, among which the succession of seasons probably occupies the foremost place, serving, as I have remarked, as a framework for my retrospective picture. Each of the events which I thus run over is really a long succession of shorter experiences, which, however, I do not separately represent to myself. My imaginative reproduction of such a period is thus essentially a greatly abbreviated and symbolic mode of representation. It by no means corresponds to the visual imagination of a large magnitude, say that of the length of sea horizon visible at any one moment, which is complete in an instant, and quite independent of a successive imagination of its parts or details. It is essentially a very fragmentary and defective numerical idea, in which, moreover, the real quantitative value of the units is altogether lost sight of.

Now, it seems to follow from this that there is something illusory in all our recallings of long periods of the past. It is by no means strictly correct to say that memory ever reinstates the past. It is more true to say that we see the past in retrospect as greatly foreshortened. Yet even this is hardly an accurate account of what takes place, since, when we look at an object foreshortened in perspective, we see enough to enable us imaginatively to reconstruct the actual size of the object, whereas in the case of time-perspective no such reconstruction is even indirectly possible.

It is to be added that this constant error in time-reproduction is greater in the case of remote periods than of near ones of the same length. Thus, the retrospective estimate of a duration far removed from the present, say the length of time passed at a particular school, is much more superficial and fragmentary than that of a recent corresponding period. So that the time-vista of the past is seen to answer pretty closely to a visible perspective in which the amount of apparent error due to foreshortening increases with the distance.

In practice, however, this defect in the imagination of duration leads to no error. Although, as a concrete image answering to some definite succession of experiences a year is a gross misrepresentation, as a general concept implying a collection of a certain number of similar successions of experience it is sufficiently exact. That is to say, though we cannot imagine the absolute duration of any such cycle of experience, we can, by the simple device of conceiving certain durations as multiples of others, perfectly well compare different periods of times, and so appreciate their relative magnitudes.

Leaving, then, this constant error in time-appreciation, we will pass to the variable and more palpable errors in the retrospective measurement of time. Each person's experience will have told him that in estimating the distance of a past event by a mere retrospective sense of duration, he is liable to extraordinary fluctuations of judgment. Sometimes when the clock strikes we are surprised at the rapidity of the hour. At other times the timepiece seems rather to have lagged behind its usual pace. And what is true of a short interval is still more true of longer intervals, as months and years. The understanding of these fluctuations will be promoted by our brief glance at the constant errors in retrospective time-appreciation.

And here it is necessary to distinguish between the sense of duration which we have during any period, and the retrospective sense which survives the period, for these do not necessarily agree. The former rests mainly on our prospective sense of time, whereas the latter must be altogether retrospective.[121]

Our estimate of time as it passes is commonly said to depend on the amount of consciousness which we are giving to the fact of its transition. Thus, when the mind is unoccupied and suffering from ennui, we feel time to move sluggishly. On the other hand, interesting employment, by diverting the thoughts from time, makes it appear to move at a more rapid pace. This fact is shown in the common expressions which we employ, such as "to kill time," and the German Langweile. Similarly, it is said that when we are eagerly anticipating an event, as the arrival of a friend, the mere fact of dwelling on the interval makes it appear to swell out.[122]

This view is correct in the main, and is seen, indeed, to follow from the great psychological principle that what we attend to exists for us more, has more reality, and so naturally seems greater than what we do not attend to. At the same time, this principle must be supplemented by another consideration. Suppose that I am very desirous that time should not pass quickly. If, for example, I am enjoying myself or indulging in idleness, and know that I have to be off to keep a not very agreeable engagement in a quarter of an hour, time will seem to pass too rapidly; and this not because my thoughts are diverted from the fact of its transition, for, on the contrary, they are reverting to it more than they usually do, but because my wish to lengthen the interval leads me to represent the unwelcome moment as further off than it actually is, in other words, to construct an ideal representation of the period in contrast with which the real duration looks miserably short.

Our estimate of duration, when it is over, depends less on this circumstance of having attended to its transition than on other considerations. Wundt, indeed, seems to think that the feeling accompanying the actual flow of time has no effect on the surviving subjective appreciation; but this must surely be an error, since our mental image of any period is determined by the character of its contents. Wundt says that when once a tedious waiting is over, it looks short because we instantly forget the feeling of tedium. My self-observation, as well as the interrogation of others, has satisfied me, on the contrary, that this feeling distinctly colours the retrospective appreciation. Thus, when waiting at a railway station for a belated train, I am distinctly aware that each quarter of an hour looks long, not only as it passes, but when it is over. In fact, I am disposed to express my feeling as one of disappointment that only so short an interval has passed since I last looked at my watch.

Nevertheless, I am ready to allow that, though a feeling of tedium, or the contrary feeling of irritation at the rapidity of time, will linger for an appreciable interval and colour the retrospective estimate of time, this backward view is chiefly determined by other considerations. As Wundt remarks, we have no sense of time's slowness during sleep, yet on waking we imagine that we have been dreaming for an immensely long period. This retrospective appreciation is determined by the number and the degree or intensity of the experiences, and, what comes very much to the same thing, by the amount of unlikeness, freshness, and discontinuity characterizing these experiences.

Time, as I have already hinted, is known under the form of a succession of different conscious experiences. Unbroken uniformity would give us no sense of time, because it would give us no conscious experience at all. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a perfectly uniform mental state extending through an appreciable duration. In looking at one and the same object, even in listening to one and the same tone, I am in no two successive fractions of a second in exactly the same state of mind. Slight alterations in the strength of the sensation,[123] in the degree or direction of attention, and in the composition of that penumbra of vague images which it calls up, occur at every distinguishable fraction of time.

This being so, it would seem to follow that the greater the number of clearly marked changes, and the more impressive and exciting these transitions, the fuller will be our sense of time. And this is borne out by individual reflection. When striking and deeply interesting events follow one another very rapidly, as when we are travelling, duration appears to swell out.

It is possible that such a succession of stirring experiences may beget a vague consciousness of time at each successive moment, and apart from retrospection, simply by force