TIME: KAAL VS RITU (PERCEPTION VS REALITY)

Yesterday we went to the town centre by bus. When we reached near the bus stand our bus was just leaving. Next bus came in 3 minutes as scheduled. But it seemed that we waited much longer.  When coming back we reached the bus station early. The bus was due in 30 minutes. Thought of going to Starbuck for coffee but it seemed that there was not enough time. We just waited at the bus station. It came on time and we reached back home.

Strangely, 3 minutes wait seemed much longer at our local bus stand whereas it certainly seemed less than half an hour while waiting at the city centre. Was it because there was much more activity at the main bus station to keep our attention diverted compared to our local road side bus stand or was it that we were more eager to go to town centre than coming come?

But this phenomenon of stretching or shortening of subjective time does happen even for carefully controlled tasks. A short duration task is overestimated and a long duration task is underestimated. If someone asks you how long you took to shave this morning, most likely you will overestimate the duration. On the other hand, if you are asked how long you took to mow the lawn, you are more likely to underestimate the duration.  It does seem strange but our subjective time does stretch or constrict with duration of the tasks. 

Karl von Vierordt (1868) was first to put forward this observation academically.  It is known as Vierordt's law. When asked after finishing a task, people always overestimate the time it took, if the task was of a short duration where as they underestimated if it took longer.  Vierordt’s work was with how people remembered the duration after they had performed the tasks. It was dismissed as an error of memory for a long time but recent studies have shown that it happens even contemporaneously while one is actually performing the task and also in predicting how long a task would take.

This manipulation of time by our brain is quite common. We always overestimate the duration of red light at the road crossings and underestimate the time it takes us to get ready in the morning. So when we reach late at the office we blame the traffic not our getting up late!

Even if we do not look at a clock, we do have a sense of time: an inherent internal clock in our brain. Depending on whether it is running slow or fast our sense of time gets distorted. It has been shown to tick faster when the energy consumption of the brain is higher and vice versa.

When you see or hear something unexpected the brain tries to process it in more detail and that needs more energy. Our internal chronometer ticks faster and the subjective time is stretched.

When you see a bold coloured or fast moving picture with loud music in a commercial, it seems that the advertisement lasted much longer than it really was.  With television time costing a fortune, advertising agencies are getting more adapt at exploiting our internal clock.  

Just the opposite is used by the customer call-centres, they put soothing low beat classical music while you are waiting. They hope that customers would feel that waiting time was shorter than what it actually was. The same technique is employed in the waiting lounges at railway stations and airports.

We all have a few friends who always turn-up late. Now we know they are not intentionally adhering to Indian Standard Time but their internal chronometer is set at a slower pace!

The concept of duality of time is of course not new. Ancient Indian philosophers called it Kaal and Ritu. The former is abstract, universal, running always at the same pace. The later is subjective, variable and perceivable. Kaal is reality; Ritu is manifest or percept.

PROUSTIAN MEMORY: SMELL, MEMORY AND REALITY

Sun was shining; it was a completely blue sky. I sat in the garden with a book and a cup of coffee.  In the border near where I was sitting, there was a Marigold plant laden with flowers. The colours of the petals were a combination of dark red and bright yellow like flames of fire. Impulsively I plucked a couple of flowers and put it on the table. 

I opened my book and started reading. As soon as I opened the pages, a waft of familiar smell hit me. The smell was coming from my fingers, which I had used to pluck the marigold flowers. This familiar smell brought the memory of my high school days with such intensity that I felt physically transported in that big colourful marquee in the school field on a Saraswati Puja* day. I could see the statue of the goddess in bright yellow and red sari and the whole dais covered with marigold flowers. Most of the decoration was done a few days before but we arranged the flowers in the early hours of the morning so that they would look as fresh as possible. We also pinned a number of flowers to the fabric behind the statue in a gushing fountain design. I could see the face of my classmate who drew this design with a piece of wood charcoal.  I saw myself pricking my finger and reflexly sucking the tip. And there were my fingers, tinged green, yellow and red with intense smell of marigold just under my nose. This memory was like a hologram engulfing me, almost real.  

This kind of memory, where an unexpected re-encounter with a scent from the distant past brings back a rush of memories, is called “Proustian Memory" named after Marcel Proust, one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.

I have smelled marigold before but I never felt like that. This time I think it was not just the smell but also many other sensory clues were similar. The day was sunny, temperature was not too cold, not too hot, very like late February or early March in India. I was sitting in a green grass lawn very similar though much smaller to the field in my high school. All these sensory inputs together probably reproduced exact environment, which I had once experienced, and the mind converted the memory into virtual reality.

Come to think of it, the reality we perceive is actually a creation of our mind.  The raw material with which mind creates reality is memories. I am now sitting in my study writing this blog. I am aware of the date and time and the fact that the bookcase is behind me and the telephone on my left side only because of my recent and not so recent memories. Though I am only seeing or touching a small fraction of my world, I am fully aware of it only due to this wonderful gift called memory. My present reality is based on my memories, not on what is actually there at exactly this moment. Another interesting topic for another blog.

*Saraswati Puja (also known as Basant Panchami) is a festival devoted to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and art. The festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm in the schools & colleges of India.