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PATRICK COLM HOGAN, Affective Space and Emotional Time

Time dilation (the subjective experience of time being expand-
ed over actual, objective duration) illustrates these points well. It has
been analyzed with much insight at small time scales and by refer-
ence to attention (see, for example, Pöppel; Tse et al.). The importance
of attention provides a potential means of connecting this research
with emotion and larger time scale temporal dilation—or contraction.
Indeed, Tse and colleagues introduce their discussion with a larger
scale and highly emotional example of an automobile accident, but
they do not develop the discussion in that direction. The relevance
of emotion has not gone unremarked in this research. Wittmann and
colleagues note that the “endogenous time base […] is sensitive to
emotional salience.” Indeed, they note that “The strong relationship
between affect and time is well documented in many empirical stud-
ies” (8; they cite Noulhiane et al.; Droit-Volet and Gil). But for the
most part the time-scales remain very short, and the exploration of
the relation to emotion is limited.
Of course, here as elsewhere, there are exceptions. For example,
recent work by Gable, Neal, and Poole treats subjects’ sense of the
passage of time in relation to emotion states such as sadness. On the
other hand, this research is not always entirely clear in its implica-
tions. For example, one experiment showed that subjects found time
passed more quickly when watching a sad film in which children dis-
cussed a sibling’s death versus a neutral film that “depicted the ex-
teriors of houses” (241). But, prima facie, this difference seems to bear
more on interest and attentional focus—or engagement—than on
sadness.
Perhaps the author who has come closest to the view advocated
here is Barbara Tversky (see Tversky; Tversky and Morrison; Marsh
and Tversky). She has thought about time and space in relation to
storytelling. This is broadly in keeping with the recognition of nar-
ratologists that space and time are key constituents of ‘storyworlds,’
which is to say, the physical and social environments in which nar-
rative events unfold. For example, along with her collaborators,
6
Tversky has stressed the relation between storytelling and the isola-
tion of events. Moreover, she has understood storytelling and the def-

6 For introductions to space and time in narrative, see Buchholz and Jahn,
and Fludernik.

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