You step out of a cottage after dark to bring in a jacket you left on the rail. The porch light has gone out and, for a few seconds, all you can see is the outline of the ridge. Then more stars become visible. What looked like an empty stretch of sky begins to show depth, with a pale band running almost from one horizon to the other. The message you were composing in your head can wait. You stand there long enough to notice that the jacket is cold in your hands. That shift in perspective is part of what psychologists call awe . An encounter can feel so vast, powerful or intricate that it takes a moment to work out where you fit. The feeling can be joyful, unsettling or a mixture of both. Researchers have begun to test which aspects of that experience change how people see themselves, how they attend to their surroundings and what they do when someone else needs a hand.

You pass a building you have walked by dozens of times. Today, two dark upstairs windows and the open arch below look like a face caught in a moment of surprise. You can point to each window, explain exactly what it is and still see the expression. A step to one side changes the shadows and the face recedes. From the pavement opposite, it is there again. This is face pareidolia , the experience of seeing a face in a pattern formed by something else. It raises a question about a skill so familiar that we rarely stop to examine it. How does vision decide that two marks and a gap belong together, and why does the resulting arrangement seem to have a gaze, an age or even a mood? What exactly is pareidolia? Pareidolia occurs when an ambiguous sensory pattern takes on a recognisable form. A cloud might look like a dog or a patch of paint like a letter. In face pareidolia, a real stimulus supplies the apparent features. The dark marks on a tree trunk really are there. Their appearance as ...

You are about to order a lamp for your desk. The cream one costs a little less, and you are leaning towards it. Then a friend looks over your shoulder and says, ‘You’re not getting the blue one. Get the cream one.’ You find yourself opening the blue lamp’s listing again. The shade and price are exactly as they were a moment ago. What has changed is the feeling that choosing it would be your decision.

The irresistible pull of an unanswered question A friend is telling you about the old cinema on the corner. During renovations, someone found a small brass key behind the screen. ‘And do you know what it opened?’ The train doors slide apart before your friend can finish, and you both have to move. Five minutes later, you are still thinking about the key. The answer would make little difference to your day, yet you would happily spend a few more minutes finding it out.

When music sends shivers down your spine A familiar recording reaches the moment you have been waiting for. A voice rises above the instruments, the harmony opens out, and a shiver travels across your shoulders. For a few seconds, the music feels physically present: your skin prickles, your throat tightens, or tears arrive before you have decided what you feel. How can patterns of sound produce an experience like this? Research on musical chills brings together perception, anticipation, emotion, memory and bodily responses. Its appeal is that an unusually intense experience can be studied while someone listens. Its difficulty is that the same recording may overwhelm one listener and leave another unmoved. Understanding that difference requires more than identifying a dramatic chord or a single brain region.

Where did the years go? A childhood summer can seem to contain an entire world: a particular friendship, a journey, afternoons with no clear ending. Years later, an adult looks at the calendar and wonders how another November has arrived. The contrast is familiar, but it raises several different questions. Did time actually feel slower during childhood? Does it pass faster now, or does the past simply look different when remembered? A clock measures elapsed time consistently. Our experience depends on what we are doing, noticing, anticipating and remembering. Five minutes waiting for a delayed train can feel unlike five minutes spent in an absorbing conversation. A holiday can disappear while it is happening yet occupy a surprisingly large space in memory. Psychology offers explanations for these differences, although there is no single mechanism that makes every person's life accelerate. Understanding the evidence begins by separating the experience of a passing moment from a...

When everyone is watching, who takes action? A shopping bag splits open in a busy pedestrian square. Apples roll towards the kerb, and its owner crouches beside scattered belongings. One passer-by slows down. Another glances across, then looks at the people nearby. A third wonders whether assistance would be welcome. For a few seconds, several people notice the same difficulty while each waits for somebody else to respond. This fictional moment is ordinary rather than dramatic, but it exposes an important social puzzle. Other people can make us feel that helping is somebody else's responsibility. They can also provide reassurance, practical support and the beginnings of a coordinated response. The bystander effect describes circumstances in which the presence of others inhibits an individual's intervention. It does not mean that crowds inevitably abandon people who need assistance. Understanding helping requires examining how people interpret situations, relate to one anoth...