Study Finds Running and Mental Distraction Equally Distort Time Perception
Why does time sometimes seem to stretch when you’re running or doing something mentally demanding? A new study explores whether it’s our heart rate or our brain’s workload that warps our sense of time. Italian researchers tested how running, walking backward, and multitasking influence time perception, and the results challenge what we thought we knew about how movement changes our experience of time.
Note: This article is intended for general information and educational purposes. It summarizes scientific research in accessible language for a broad audience and is not an official scientific press release.
Have you ever noticed that time seems to slow down when you are running or performing a complex task? A new study led by Italian researchers explores why our perception of time can become distorted during physical activity. By comparing running, walking backward, and mental distraction, the scientists reveal that attention and motor control, rather than just physical exertion, play a key role. The findings challenge common beliefs about the roots of time perception and offer new insight into how our minds process duration during movement.
Many people find that time feels different depending on the activities they perform. This effect is especially noticeable during exercise, when minutes may appear to pass more slowly or quickly. A study by researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology, the University of Genova, the University of Trento, and the University of Florence (all Italy), published in Scientific Reports on July 15, 2025, examines how different types of movement and cognitive activity affect the way we perceive time. The research, titled “The role of physical and cognitive effort on time perception”, and led by Tommaso Bartolini and colleagues, sought to determine whether changes in time perception during physical activity are caused by physiological changes or by the mental demands of movement control.
How the Study Was Conducted
The study was designed to address an important question in neuroscience: does physical activity itself change our sense of time, or do cognitive factors, such as the attention needed to control movement, play a larger role? Previous research indicated that people tend to overestimate event durations when running or exercising. However, it was unclear whether this effect was a result of physiological changes, such as increased heart rate, or due to the mental effort required for coordinating complex movements.
The study involved 22 healthy adults (average age 26, 10 women), most of whom were not professional athletes. Participants varied in their activity levels, with some reporting no regular exercise and others occasionally engaging in activities like running, gym workouts, or team sports. All had normal or corrected vision and provided medical certificates to confirm good health.
In each of the four experimental conditions, participants first memorized the length of a two-second visual signal displayed on a screen. After a short pause, they saw new visual signals of different lengths (between 1 and 4 seconds) and judged whether each lasted the same as, or different from, the reference signal.
The four conditions were as follows:
- Standing still (baseline): Judging durations at rest.
- Running: Completing the task while running on a treadmill set to 80% of each participant’s maximum heart rate.
- Walking backward: Performing the task while walking backward on the treadmill: a movement requiring extra concentration and coordination.
- Dual-task (mental distraction): Standing still while performing the timing task alongside a simultaneous visual memory challenge.
The order of these conditions was varied for each participant to avoid bias. Most participants completed all conditions in a single day, with a few spread across two days. Participants rested between active tasks until their heart rates returned to baseline. Each session took place in a quiet, dimly lit room, and heart rate was monitored throughout the physically active conditions. All procedures were approved by an ethics committee, and every participant gave informed consent.
What Makes This Study New
According to the authors, previous studies showed that time perception is distorted during running, but the cause had not been fully clarified. The present study stands out by directly comparing running to both a motorically demanding but less intense task (walking backward) and to a purely cognitive distraction (the dual-task scenario). This allowed the researchers to investigate whether time distortions are linked more to cognitive demands, physical exertion, or a combination of both.
The authors emphasize that, by comparing scenarios with different combinations of physical and cognitive challenges, their research aimed to separate the impact of each factor on time perception.
Key Findings from the Study
1. As noted in the article, participants consistently overestimated the duration of visual stimuli.
In all conditions except the baseline (standing still), participants systematically judged the stimuli as lasting longer than they actually did – during running, walking backward, and while performing the dual-task. Their duration estimates were more accurate when standing still compared to any other condition.
2. The study reports that these distortions happened across both short and long time intervals.
This suggests a general mechanism behind how we perceive time, regardless of the length of the interval. The authors emphasize that similar changes in time perception during both physical activities (running, walking backward) and mental tasks (dual-task) show that mental effort linked to attention and motor control alone can cause distortions comparable to those caused by intense physical exercise.
3. The article highlights that time distortions were not caused solely by physical exertion.
Similar distortions appeared during the cognitively demanding motor task (walking backward) and the dual-task condition (mental distraction while standing still). According to the authors, this indicates that increased cognitive load related to motor control or divided attention can cause temporal distortions, not just physiological changes from physical activity.
Authors’ Conclusions and Additional Insights from Neuroscience News
The authors conclude that distortions in time perception observed during running are not primarily due to physiological stress. Instead, cognitive and attentional demands, whether arising from controlling complex movements or multitasking, play a key role in shaping how we perceive time while moving. They emphasize that in everyday sensorimotor activities, cognitive factors related to motor control and divided attention influence subjective time perception more than physical exertion alone. The study’s limitations include the specific tasks and durations tested, and the authors suggest future research to explore if similar effects occur with other types of movement or over longer periods.
Building on these findings, a recent feature from Neuroscience News offers a broader perspective on how movement and cognition interact to influence our sense of time. The article highlights that similar distortions during running, walking backward, and performing a distracting mental task point to divided attention as the primary driver, rather than elevated heart rate or physical stress. This supports the “attentional gate” model, which proposes that when attention is split between multiple tasks, such as balancing while walking backward and solving a cognitive problem, the brain allocates fewer resources to tracking time accurately, leading to overestimations.
Notably, these effects occur across both very short (sub-second) and longer (supra-second) intervals, suggesting a fundamental mechanism in human time perception that transcends specific timescales. As emphasized in a recent overview by Neuroscience News (July 16, 2025), “Researchers also caution against assuming that timing distortions observed during physical activities reflect only physiological factors like fatigue or hormonal changes. Their data clearly show that attentional and cognitive demands are at least as important.”
Ultimately, these findings extend beyond treadmill experiments and remind us that perception is a profoundly embodied process. The brain actively integrates sensory input with motor control, and in real-world settings, any task involving unusual or complex movements may bias our sense of time. This reinforces the conclusion that how we move fundamentally shapes how we perceive even the passage of time itself, as reported by Neuroscience News.
The information in this article is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. For medical advice, please consult your doctor.
References
- Bartolini T, Petrizzo I, Arrighi R, Anobile G. The role of physical and cognitive effort on time perception. Scientific Reports. July 15, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-07814-9
- Neuroscience News. Running the Clock: Attention and Movement Skew Time Perception. July 16, 2025. https://neurosciencenews.com/movement-attention-time-perception-29467/
