Slow-motion world for small animals

Smaller animals tend to perceive time as if it is passing in slow motion, a new study has shown.

This means that they can observe movement on a finer timescale than bigger creatures, allowing them to escape from larger predators.

Insects and small birds, for example, can see more information in one second than a larger animal such as an elephant.

The work is published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

"The ability to perceive time on very small scales may be the difference between life and death for fast-moving organisms such as predators and their prey," said lead author Kevin Healy, at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland.

The reverse was found in bigger animals, which may miss things that smaller creatures can rapidly spot.

In humans, too, there is variation among individuals. Athletes, for example, can often process visual information more quickly. An experienced goalkeeper would therefore be quicker than others in observing where a ball comes from.

The speed at which humans absorb visual information is also age-related, said Andrew Jackson, a co-author of the work at TCD.

"Younger people can react more quickly than older people, and this ability falls off further with increasing age."

he team looked at the variation of time perception across a variety of animals. They gathered datasets from other teams who had used a technique called critical flicker fusion frequency, which measures the speed at which the eye can process light.

Plotting these results on a graph revealed a pattern that showed a strong relationship between body size and how quick the eye could respond to changing visual information such as a flashing light.

- BBC.co.uk