There are several theories that attempt to explain why our perception of time speeds up as we get older. One idea is a gradual alteration of our internal biological clocks. The slowing of our metabolism as we get older matches the slowing of our heartbeat and our breathing. Children’s biological pacemakers beat more quickly, meaning that they experience more biological markers (heartbeats, breaths) in a fixed period of time, making it feel like more time has passed.
Another theory suggests that the passage of time we perceive is related to the amount of new perceptual information we absorb. With lots of new stimuli, our brains take longer to process the information, so the period of time feels longer. This would help to explain the “slow motion perception” often reported in the moments before an accident. The unfamiliar circumstances mean there is so much new information to take in.
In fact, it may be that when faced with new situations our brains record more richly detailed memories, so that it is our recollection of the event that appears slower rather than the event itself. This has been shown to be the case experimentally for subjects experiencing free fall. [...]
We commonly think of our lives in terms of decades—our 20s, our 30s, and so on—which suggests an equal weight to each period. However, on the logarithmic scale, we perceive different periods of time as the same length. The following differences in age would be perceived the same under this theory: five to ten, ten to 20, 20 to 40, and 40 to 80.
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