In a new study published Sept. 30 in Communications Biology, researchers used brain scans taken while people watched an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to explore how the brain processes time. The findings suggest that age-related changes in how our brains register “events” could explain the feeling that time speeds up with age.
The research drew on data from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN), a long-term brain-aging project. In total, 577 participants aged 18 to 88 watched an eight-minute clip from the Hitchcock episode “Bang! You’re Dead” while undergoing functional MRI (fMRI) scans. The clip was chosen because previous studies found it produces synchronized brain activity across different viewers — ideal for studying how the brain tracks unfolding events.
Using a computer algorithm called Greedy State Boundary Search (GSBS), the researchers analyzed the scans to detect transitions between distinct patterns of brain activity. They found that in older adults, these transitions occurred less frequently — meaning their brains stayed in the same “state” longer than those of younger participants.
“This suggests that longer, and therefore fewer, neural states within the same period may contribute to older adults experiencing time as passing more quickly,” the authors wrote. The idea aligns with a concept dating back to Aristotle: the more events we perceive in a given time, the longer that time feels.
The researchers proposed that this slowdown in neural transitions could stem from age-related neural dedifferentiation — a process where different brain regions become less specialized over time. As a result, older adults may experience fewer distinct “moments” as their brains blend events together, making time appear to slip by faster.
Not everyone thinks brain activity alone explains the phenomenon. Joanna Szadura, a linguist at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland, told Live Science that our sense of time also depends on how we measure it internally. “A year is 20% of a 5-year-old’s life but only 2% of a 50-year-old’s,” she said. “Our perception of time is not linear.”
Still, the study’s authors say that while we can’t stop the clock, we may be able to change how full our time feels. “Learning new things, traveling, and engaging in novel activities may help make time feel more expansive,” said co-author Linda Geerligs of Radboud University in the Netherlands. “Meaningful social interactions and activities that bring joy can also contribute to a fuller sense of time.”
So the next time a year seems to vanish in the blink of an eye, it might not just be your imagination — it could be your brain’s way of streamlining time itself.
