In a study carried out by Dorthe Berntsen and David Rubin , a group of people was asked about the most important or momentous moments of a life. Of the ten most mentioned events, six of them took place on average between 15 and 30 years of age.
The ten most memorable events were : having children, getting married, starting school, starting college, falling in love for the first time, suffering the death of others, beginning retirement, leaving home, the death of parents and starting their first job. .
The most surprising thing for the researchers was to verify that more than half of the most memorable moments of a person had occurred in such a short period of time, barely fifteen years. That is, our most special memories are constrained to less than 20 percent of what is considered a normal life span. Those moments were: getting married, starting school, starting college, falling in love for the first time, leaving home and starting your first job. Many times, it even included “having children.”
Reminiscence shock
Psychologists call this phenomenon Reminiscence Bump (Reminiscence shock) and its key lies in the novelty. Explains the British psychologist Claudia Hammond in his book Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception (The twisted time: deciphering the mysteries of perception of time), youth is a time of firsts: first kiss, first sex, first job, first trips without parents, etc.
Due to its impact, then, these kinds of memories are kept fresher and are recalled in more detail. Also remembering an event in detail makes it seem more recent . This also explains why during old age it is easier for us to remember our childhood and youth, before events that occurred less time ago.
Finally, novelty is the main reason why time passes more slowly and, therefore, as we get older and older, time also seems to run faster. Life, as it becomes more routine and is less marked by new experiences, offers fewer details when it comes to remembering, that is, it seems less full of moments, minutes, hours, days.
To demonstrate this distorting effect on time perception, another study, conducted by Vani Pariyadath and David Eagleman of the Baylor College of Medicine, taught a group of participants a series of images. Most of them were identical, but sometimes a new image would appear that broke the monotonous cadence.
Despite the fact that all the images were taught during the same time interval, the participants did not perceive it that way. Participants claimed that the new image was displayed for a longer time . In the opinion of the researchers, this occurred because the novelty seemed to expand the psychological level of time.
What is new, what is transcendental, what is important, what could change our lives are more memorable moments and, by extension, they pass at a slower pace. For this reason, time also passes more slowly when we are in pain, and it passes much more quickly when we have a good time or are distracted .
