Time flies when you're having fun - or is it the other way around?

Time flies when you're having fun is a tried and tested proverb but it could work in the other direction too according to researchers from the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis. They got students to carry out a mundane task and told them it would take ten minutes to do. Although the clocks in the rooms where the students carried out the tasks were manipulated to show that ten minutes had passed in reality some spent five minutes working on it and others twenty giving the illusion that time had flown by or dragged. Those participants who thought that time had flown rated the task as much more enjoyable than those who thought it dragged even though both groups had spent exactly the same amount of time on it.

You can find out more about this research at

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/01/time-flew-by-i-must-have-been-enjoying.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29&utm_content=Google+Reader