Written By: Ivey Ingalls, Staff Writer

To a fly, an oncoming thwack seems to be in slow motion. Flies process 4 times more visual information per second than humans; that’s 250 frames per second to our 60.

Supposedly “one-dog” year is equivalent to seven human years. Does this mean that one year feels like seven to our canine companions? Well, according to a recent study in Animal Behavior, body mass and metabolic rate plays a large role in determining how various species perceive time.

Time perception is determined by how quickly an animal’s nervous system processes sensory information. The scientists who tested this theory, did so by rapidly flashing lights in the presence of their test subjects. If the light flashes fast enough, animals (including humans) observe it as a solid, unblinking light.The animal’s brain activity, measured by electrodes, reveals the highest frequency at which each species perceived the light as flashing. The animals that perceived the light as flashing at higher intervals experience time at a finer resolution. This means that movements appear to develop much slower to them. A good way to visualize this is to think of an action movie with a slow-motion bullet dodging scene. The data proved that species that perceive time at the finest resolutions tend to be smaller and have faster metabolisms.

The findings of this study show that differences in time perception are not arbitrary, rather finely tuned to each species size, environment and role in the ecosystem. In other words, this slow-motion like play out of life would prove to be essential to an animal that needs to respond to visual stimuli rapidly, such as escaping predators or catching an elusive prey. Rapid perception would prove to be essential for a hawk, but would merely waste the precious energy of a whale.

So, yes—Spot really does experience time slower. However, it is most likely not at a factor of seven. Dogs perceive time at a rate of about 25 percent faster than human beings, which is just fast enough to make a television show appear to be nothing more than a series of flickering images on the screen.

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