if the brain in fear opens up and processes more info in a short burst like this, it therefore has different speeds, so isn't it possible that we all have a different average speed... some of us seeing things slower and with more information, but thinking it's normal that way. is this what intelligence is?

Mink, I'd say that your description is essentially correct. I wish that I could post Michio Kaku's 'Time' documentary series here, because they dedicated a whole show to your question. They repeated the free fall experiment with even better methodology. The subjects viewed a series of random numbers as they fell, and it turned out that their response time for recognizing the numbers was much better than when they were on the ground (about 1.5x quicker on average from what I remember.) [ < My memory failed me, this isn't correct, see comment below.]

What determines our individual 'clock speed' is an open question as far as I know. We do know where our '24hr clock' is located though, it's called the .

lol he said scat diving

Fissionchips: The experiment in this video does NOT show that the mind's response time is "faster" during a heightened sense of panic. It seems to only illustrate what was published on dec. 7th in this study:

http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=1030

The article states: "Even though participants remembered their own falls as having taken one-third longer than those of the other study participants, they were not able to see more events in time. Instead, the longer duration was a trick of their memory, not an actual slow-motion experience."

I don't remember the results from the Kaku documentary but I would be very surprised if it showed otherwise. I think you might be mistaken but if not, I am VERY curious why there would be a discrepancy between the above study and the film.

Mink, this experiment has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence.

jmanfivek - Thanks for the link, that was an interesting read. The research group you linked to is the same one that appeared in the documentary I mentioned. They hadn't run the experiment yet when it aired, so all they could do was speculate based on the response of a single participant.

This is an exciting time to be following developments in neuroscience. So much has been discovered recently, and much of it is understandable even to non-experts (like me).

The longer I teach, the less I'm sure I even believe in any single thing that could be called intelligence. I had a graduate student once who seemed incredibly slow. For a bit I was torn with guilt about how I was going to gently steer him into a field more suited to his talents. He just seemed to take a really long time to get any new concept. Then I started noticing that when he *did* get the concept, he *really* got it. And his approach was new, different, and creative. He did new things, and he did much more profound things than the people who had "gotten" the concepts quickly.

I'm much more impressed by persistence, interest, and joy in the material than I am in any abstract thing called intelligence. Not that there isn't such a thing as native talent, but for all but the highest levels, you can make up for talent with plain old sweat. When you add sweat to talent, you get magic.

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by cricket.