People often say that during unpleasant events, e.g. traumatic incidents such as car accidents, time slows down (i.e. time is overestimated). However aversive events can elicit at least two dissociable subtypes of reactions: fear (transient and relating to an imminent event) and anxiety (diffuse and relating to an unpredictable event). We hypothesised that anxiety might have an opposite effect on time perception compared to fear. To test this we combined a robust anxiety manipulation (threat-of-shock) with a widely used timing task in which participants judged whether the duration of a stimulus was long or short. In line with our hypothesis, across three experiments (with varying stimulus timings and shock levels), participants significantly underestimated time under inducted anxiety, as indicated by a rightward shift of the psychophysical function (meta-analytic effect size: d = 0.68, 95% confidence interval: 0.42-0.94). In two further studies, we were unable to replicate previous findings that fear leads to time overestimation, after adapting our temporal cognition task, which suggests a dissociation between fear and anxiety on how they affect time perception. Our results suggest that experimentally inducing anxiety leads to underestimating the duration of temporal intervals, which might be a starting point in explaining different subjective experiences of disorders related to fear (e.g. post-traumatic stress disorder) and anxiety (e.g. generalised anxiety disorder).

中文翻译：

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焦虑使时间过得更快，而恐惧则没有效果。

人们经常说，在不愉快的事件中，例如车祸等创伤性事件，时间会变慢（即时间被高估）。然而，厌恶事件可以引发至少两种可分离的反应亚型：恐惧（短暂的并与即将发生的事件有关）和焦虑（分散并与不可预测的事件有关）。我们假设与恐惧相比，焦虑可能对时间感知产生相反的影响。为了测试这一点，我们将强大的焦虑操纵（休克威胁）与广泛使用的计时任务相结合，在该任务中，参与者判断刺激的持续时间是长还是短。根据我们的假设，在三个实验中（不同的刺激时间和冲击水平），参与者显着低估了诱发焦虑的时间，如心理物理功能的右移所示（荟萃分析效应大小：d = 0.68，95% 置信区间：0.42-0.94）。在进一步的两项研究中，我们无法复制先前的发现，即恐惧导致时间高估，在调整了我们的时间认知任务后，这表明恐惧和焦虑之间在它们如何影响时间感知方面存在分离。我们的研究结果表明，实验诱发焦虑会导致低估时间间隔的持续时间，这可能是解释与恐惧（例如创伤后应激障碍）和焦虑（例如广泛性焦虑症）相关的疾病的不同主观体验的起点。在调整了我们的时间认知任务后，我们无法复制先前的发现，即恐惧导致时间高估，这表明恐惧和焦虑之间在它们如何影响时间感知方面存在分离。我们的研究结果表明，实验诱发焦虑会导致低估时间间隔的持续时间，这可能是解释与恐惧（例如创伤后应激障碍）和焦虑（例如广泛性焦虑症）相关的疾病的不同主观体验的起点。在调整了我们的时间认知任务后，我们无法复制先前的发现，即恐惧导致时间高估，这表明恐惧和焦虑之间在它们如何影响时间感知方面存在分离。我们的研究结果表明，实验诱发焦虑会导致低估时间间隔的持续时间，这可能是解释与恐惧（例如创伤后应激障碍）和焦虑（例如广泛性焦虑症）相关的疾病的不同主观体验的起点。