 The study also assessed the sadness scores by the Brief Mood Inventory Scale (BMIS) and suggested that the emotional state of sadness in the depressive participants goes some way to explaining their temporal performance.These results may be explained by a slowing down of the internal clock in the depressive participants.It appears that those with mild depression seem to be better at paying attention to short periods of time, says psychologist Rachel Msetfi of the University of Limerick, a co-author of the study.