Language determines how we perceive the passage of time

A study showed that bilingual speakers of languages that measure time differently — in this case Spanish and Swedish — will perceive the passage of time differently depending on the language they are using.

In Swedish, time is measured like distance (ie. something is long or short) and when prompted to assess time in Swedish, the participants were affected by a visualization of a line growing across the screen, but not a container being filled up. In Spanish, time is measured like volume (ie. small or big) and when prompted in Spanish, participants were influenced by a visualization of a container filling up, but not one of a line growing across a screen.

Summary here. Full research here.

Originally published at yourdailyscience.com on May 3, 2017.