How your heartbeat shapes your experience of time | Irena Arslanova | TEDxBerlin

Cognitive neuroscientist Irena Arslanova delves into the intricate connection between the brain, heart, and our perception of time. Highlighting the heart's role in distorting time, Arslanova's experiments showed that during heart contraction, time felt shorter, and during relaxation, it felt longer. This suggests a link between the heartbeat's impact on the brain and our overall time experience. Arslanova concludes by emphasizing the embodied nature of time perception and suggests that mindful moments, like slowing down and breathing, can enhance creativity by expanding our temporal awareness.

Irena is a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neuroscience at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is interested in how we experience time - why it can sometimes pass with a dizzying speed, yet other times take painstakingly long? Irena examines how our internal bodily signals, like the beating of the heart, cause the time to distort. She designs experiments to link perception to physiology (see: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02...) and use EEG (electroencephalography) to reveal the underlying neural mechanisms. She is starting a Leverhulme early-career fellowship in March 2024. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx