Background Commonly heard statements such as “Christmas comes around more quickly each year” suggest that the passage of time between annual events can become distorted, leading to the sensation of time passing more quickly than normal. At present however, it is unclear how prevalent such beliefs are and, what factors are predictive of it. Aim To explore the prevalence of beliefs that annual events such as Christmas (Study 1 UK sample) and Ramadan (Study 2 Iraqi sample) feel like they come around more quickly each year. To establish the association between distortions to the passage of time between annual events and emotional wellbeing, event specific enjoyment, memory function and self-reported attention to time. Methods Participants completed an online questionnaire exploring their subjective experience of time in relation to Christmas and Ramadan. In addition, measures of attention to time, memory function, quality of life and event specific emotion were also taken. Findings There was widespread agreement that Christmas and Ramadan appeared to come around more quickly each year. In both countries, this belief was associated with greater prospective memory errors, greater attention to time and greater enjoyment of the event. Furthermore, in the UK greater belief that Christmas comes around more quickly was associated with lower social quality of life and in Iraq, greater belief that Ramadan comes around more quickly each year was associated with lower age and female gender. Conclusions Distortions to the passage of time for annual events are widespread, occur across multiple cultures and are consistently predicted by prospective function, event enjoyment and attention to time. The absence of an association between older age (above 55 years) and a faster passage of time suggests that caution should be taken when concluding that time passes more quickly with increasing age. Citation: Ogden R, Alatrany SSJ, Flaiyah AM, ALi Sayyid ALdrraji H, Musa H, Alatrany ASS, et al. (2024) Distortions to the passage of time for annual events: Exploring why Christmas and Ramadan feel like they come around more quickly each year. PLoS ONE 19(7): e0304660. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0304660 Editor: Ellen L. Idler, Emory University, School of Public Health, UNITED STATES Received: September 26, 2023; Accepted: May 15, 2024; Published: July 10, 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Ogden et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting information files. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The research aims at recognition of The rate of performing tasks done by the scientific committees in the scientific departments in the University of Baghdad, within the evaluative perspective of the departments’ Heads. To find any statistically significant differences in the responses of the research sample to the rates performance of the scientific committees in scientific departments in the University of Baghdad, within the evaluative perspective of the departments’ Heads, according to the two variables of the social gender; male and females, and field of specialization of Scientific and Humanities. The research sample consisted if (107) heads of the scientific department in the University of Baghdad. The researchers designed a
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to develop the science textbook for the 1st intermediate grade by analyzing it according to life skills. Its core areas were mental skills, environmental skills, and health skills. The analysis tool was used after verifying its validity and stability in analyzing the science textbook for the 1st intermediate grade, and the results of the study resulted in the inclusion of mental skills on a high percentage of repetitions, while we find that this percentage is low in the inclusion of environmental and health skills. The study recommended the importance of achieving balance and justice in including skills in the science textbook for the 1st intermediate grade, by emphasizing the environmental and health skills by incr
... Show MorePolyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) have gained much attention as biodegradable polymers, many efforts are being made to minimize the cost of PHAs by finding cheap carbon source depending on the type of microorganism and fermentation conditions. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effects of different glucose concentrations and other important conditions on the PHA production by Bacillus cereus isolated from soil. Polyhydroxyalkanoates PHAs accumulated by soil microorganisms were examined by screening the isolated bacteria using Sudan B Black and Nile Blue staining process. A Gram positive strain was identified using the 16s rRNA gene, deposited in the NCBI GenBank sequence database. Different growth conditions (favorite glucose concentrat
... Show MoreThe research mainly seeks to predict the amounts of non- oil Iraqi exports which concludes ) Food & Animals , Raw materials and non- tanned Leather and fur , Mineral fuels and Lubricating Oil , Chemical substances and amounts , Manufactured goods , Electrical and non - electrical machines , Supplies and Total non- Oil exports ) by using Markov Chain as one of Statistical approach to forecasting in future . In this search We estimate the transliteration probabilities matrix according to Maximum Likelihood on a data collected from central organization for Statistics and information technology represents an index numbers of non- Oil exports amount in Iraq from 2004 to 2015 depending on 2007 as a basic year . Results shown that trend of index
... Show MoreIn the present work, it had been measured the concentration of radon gas (CRn) for (10) samples of cement used in constructions before and after painting them using enamel paint, purchased from the local markets, to see the extent of its ability to reduce emissions of Rn-222 in the air. These samples were obtained from different sources available in the local markets in Baghdad and other provinces. The measurements were done by the American-made detector (RAD7). The results showed that the highest CRn in the air emitted from cement samples after coating was in the cement sample (Iranian origin) where the concentration was (58.27 Bq/m3) while the lowest CRn was found in building material samples
... Show MoreThe Iraqi culture faced a set of challenges that can be diagnosed with the most prominent features as follows:
- The dominance of authoritarian political systems which entails authoritarian regimes with the absence of contemporary political concepts of human rights.
- The prevalence of non- informed cultural systems which have the shortage of capabilities that enable them to activate cultural elements in positive references, historical, or seclusion on itself and not be able to interact with the current active cultures.
- Stagnant economic conditions have not had a decent life for individuals, or a certain level of well-being, as well as poor services and others.
- Social life controlled by the prevai
Football from popular task the referees the most important elements this game through this study shows the importance of physical training mental and its effects the level of performance for referees and especially woman referees which entered the game in the newly in our country was used physical exercise mind through films and means to assist through visualization some of the cases do the articles of law and also exercises the evolution of the level of performance of the rulers of woman the research sample 12 of referees certified by the Iraqi central football and referees committee achtbarien was chosen for this study including mental cognitive test approved by the referees committee the second test questionnaire to assess the level of p
... Show MoreBackground: Bladder cancer (BC) is the most common malignant tumor in the urinary tract and the tenth most common malignancy worldwide. Exosomes are 40–100 nm-diameter nanovesicles that are either released straight from the plasma membrane during budding or merged with the plasma membrane by multivesicular bodies. Objectives: To assess the proportion of serum and urinary Exosome levels in urinary bladder cancer patients, as well as their impact on the disease. Methods: From January 2023 to June 2023, a total of 45 samples of blood and urine were collected from individuals diagnosed with bladder cancer at the Ghazi Hariri Hospital for Specialized Surgery. They included 45 male and female patients, varying in age, as well as 45 heal
... Show MoreAntibiotics are essential for treating infectious diseases, but their overuse and adverse effects are raising concerns about global public health. The pervasiveness of antibiotic contamination in aquatic environments has drawn increased attention in recent years. The primary concern regarding the release of antibiotics into the environment is the potential for microorganisms to become resistant to antibiotics. This review article summarizes the analytical methods used to determine the presence of trimethoprim and metronidazole in various environmental samples. These antibiotics have traditionally been analyzed using tandem mass spectrometry or high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry; fluorescence or ultrav
... Show MoreA series of heterogeneous basic catalysts of CaO, MgO and CaMgO2 at different calcination temperature were synthesized via solution combustion method. Different characterization techniques have been carried out to investigate the structure of the produced catalysts i.e. X-ray diffraction (XRD), particle size analyzer, morphology by atomic force microscope (AFM) and reflection using UV-VIS diffuse reflectance spectra. The particles size analyzer revealed that the mixed oxide catalysts calcined at different calcination temperature possess smaller nano size particles compared to pure CaO. Moreover, the energy band gap was calculated based on the results of diffuse reflectance spectra. The energy band gap was redu
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