The Sense of Time While Watching a Dance Performance

Vanessa Deinzer,Liam Clancy,Marc Wittmann

doi:10.1177/2158244017745576

Abstract

Although the judgment of time is an important experience embedded in the context of cognitive and emotional appraisal of events, there are few studies concerning perceived time within an ecologically valid context. Watching a cultural event such as a dance performance is a paradigmatic situation in which viewers perceive time differently as a function of performance characteristics and viewers’ personal engagement. We staged two dance pieces that differed in speed of movement performed by a professional female dancer. Fifty-two participants watched both performances in counterbalanced order and rated their impressions, senses of self, and perceptions of space and time. On average, spectator-participants liked the faster dance better than the slower dance and felt more positive afterward. During the fast dance, participants focused more on the dancer’s breathing and less on their own body. Participant’s subjective perceptions were that time seemed to pass more slowly during the slow dance, but participants estimated the faster dance to have lasted longer. Path analyses revealed that paying attention to one’s bodily signals mediated the feeling of time. As typical flow states are characterized by positive feelings during an activity, as well as by a diminished sense of self and time, these results suggest that the participant’s average response reflected a relatively stronger flow state in the fast dance condition. Future studies might be encouraged assessing time perception in a variety of real-life situations. Participants’ responses could then be assessed with different methodological approaches.

Highlights

The passage of time is felt as constantly changing depending upon the modulations of experience
SAGE Open associated with a relative overestimation of time passage, whereas the amusement clip led to a relative underestimation; the latter result was interpreted as being in accordance with the saying, “Time flies when you are having fun.”
The t tests for independent samples were first conducted to see whether the two measurement times lead to differences in viewers’ judgment of the fast and the slow dance depending on the day of performance (Fast Dance Day 1 vs. Fast Dance Day 2; Slow Dance Day 1 vs. Slow Dance Day 2)

Summary

Introduction

The passage of time is felt as constantly changing depending upon the modulations of experience. Time passage tends to be overestimated as people report it to be slowing down; in contrast, when entertained by activities, people tend to be less aware of time passage and experience it as passing more rapidly (Conti, 2001) These modulations of subjective time vary with modulations of the sense of self. For prospective judgments of time, one attends to present time passage explicitly through an internal interval-timing mechanism (an internal clock), focusing on shorter durations in the milliseconds and seconds range According to these internal clock models, explicit attention to time and higher arousal levels lead to perceptions of relatively longer duration (Droit-Volet & Wearden, 2015, 2016). The experience of losing the sense of time is most pronounced in typical flow experiences, when one is fully immersed in challenging tasks which are accompanied with the feeling of enjoyment—while sporting, working, or playing—but it can be experienced by participants watching a performance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997)

Methods

Results

Conclusion