nifty websites

How accurately do you perceive the passage of time? Here's a website that challenges you to mentally time out a minute in your head. Click on the button to start the timer, then click again when you think it's been exactly 60 seconds. I got 56 seconds on my first try, then exactly a minute on my second try.

Michio Kaku actually talked about time perception on a TV show once. He noted that, as we get older, we tend to perceive time as moving faster, so when we do the one-minute exercise as older people, we tend to "score" on the higher end, i.e., counting out 70 seconds and perceiving that as 60 seconds. For young people, who perceive time as moving more slowly, it's the other way around: young people tend to "score" lower, i.e., counting 50 seconds and perceiving that as a full minute. This change in perception, which can be documented in this sort of time-perception game, explains the age-old question, "Where did the time go?"


This next website is a loneliness quiz. If you get bored with that topic (I got a 12, by the way), click the upper-left logo for Psych Central and enter a world of articles, quizzes, and so on. It all looks quite interesting. I see they've got personality tests. Woo-hoo!