lcc.bill@CS.UCLA.EDU ("William J. Fulco") (06/23/87)
amsler@flash.bellcore.com: > .... > I suspect what is happening is that this is analogous to the focusing > of attention on the events which happened in a real moving image > memory. That is, if one attempts to reconstruct an event that > happened very quickly in real time after the fact, one will > artificially create something like slow motion. This "slo-motion" effect of perception also appears to work in real-time. A good everyday example of this is (for people that play sports) a pass or "drive" in basketball, a volly in tennis or hitting a baseball. Professional baseball players talk about learning to see the ball they are trying to hit. They say that they actuall see the ball - an object the size of an orange, traveling at 90+ mph from 66 feet away. I used to think that this wasn't really what was happening, but I have been involved in basketball games where, for less than 1 second, (real-time) I have had an open lane to the basket, or an oportunity to make a pass. The perceived time was far slower, on the order of several seconds. During these perceived seconds, I had time to "think" about my options - actually make verbal & image (mind's eye) judgments about what to do or not to do, commit and make or skip the play. One case of this that really stands out: playing basketball several weeks ago I was left wide open for drive to the basket. I remember that I couldn't beleive I was left this wide open and I started to think "what's the catch". I then remember thinking that "I don't have time to be thinking about thinking about what I should be doing - I should just go", and with this I drove down the key (-: missed the shot :-). The point is, I had time to "argue" with myself, "verbally", in my mind before I took action, but in real-time no more that a second passed. The first time you notice this effect it is truly erie. (bill) [Yup. It happened to me once, in 1962, as I was jumping out of a swing into a sandlot. I had done this (at full speed from maximum height) hundreds of times, and did so again afterwards, but only this once did time slow to about 1/4 speed. I wonder if a similar effect might be a part of the "born again" religious conversion that is sometimes hits people during routine activities. -- KIL]