How do attention and novelty affect time perception?

When you're paying attention to something fun or when you see something new, it feels like time is going slower, and that’s because your brain is working harder!

Imagine you’re playing with your favorite toy. You look at it closely, move it around, and watch how it changes colors. That's attention, you're focusing on one thing, and your brain is really busy trying to understand it. When your brain works hard like that, time feels longer, just like when you're counting slowly from 1 to 10.

Now imagine you get a brand new toy, something you've never seen before! That's novelty, something fresh and exciting. Your brain gets super curious and starts exploring all the cool things this new toy can do. Because it’s so busy discovering, time also feels like it's stretching out.

So when your brain is either focused on one thing (attention) or exploring something brand new (novelty), it takes more time to process everything, and that makes time feel slower, just like when you're really into a game!