Negative emotions really do make events seem to last longer

We have all felt time drag during challenging periods, but there was little scientific understanding of how our emotional states influence our perception of time until recently. Now, it seems there really is a link.

Jingyi Wang and Regina Lapate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, investigated whether emotional fluctuations shape people’s memories of the timing of events.

Eighty people looked at pictures that either typically induce a negative emotion, such …