Verbs have tenses, designated past, present and future.

In conversation, the past tense and the future tense are safer than the present tense: the past is relatively difficult to cross-examine and the future is anybody’s guess.
In formal enquiries, and under cross-examination, the present tense usually means a wish to blur intentions and actions.
In a description of experimental results, use of the present tense exposes the fantasy that what happened in the past tense of the experiment generalises, for example “Unconscious fear influences emotional awareness of faces and voices”. Change from the past tense to the present tense during a scientific publication is researcher wishful thinking and peer review mediocrity in action, as in “Social personalities influence natal dispersal in a lizard”.
In live commentaries, the past tense and the future tense convey a difficulty describing what is happening now.
In historical commentaries, the present tense is an attempt to enliven.