Implicit space-time mappings on the front and back axis and their influencing factors

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1042.2018.00975

Abstract

Abstract:

One of the prominent characteristics of human language and cognition is to use the spatial concepts such as “front” and “back” to understand and represent temporal concepts such as the “past” and “future”. However, people’s implicit space-time mappings are not always consistent with explicit space-time mappings in their speech. In recent years, the “Temporal Focus Hypothesis” proposes that sagittal space-time mappings in people’s minds are shaped by their attentional focus, namely, the conceptualizers’ attentions to past, present and future events. A large body of research has shown that many factors related to temporal focus such as cultural attitudes, individual differences and life experiences may influence people’s implicit space-time mappings. These studies not only provide supporting evidence for the “Temporal Focus Hypothesis”, but also reflect the flexibility and malleability of human time cognition system.

Key words: spatial metaphors for time, “Temporal Focus Hypothesis”, cognitive flexibility, embodied cognition, implicit space-time mappings

CLC Number:

B842

LI Heng. Implicit space-time mappings on the front and back axis and their influencing factors[J]. Advances in Psychological Science, 2018, 26(6): 975-983.

Figures/Tables 1

References 57

[1]	江桂英, 李恒 . ( 2011). 概念隐喻研究在神经科学中的新进展——以心理现实性问题为例. 外语教学与研究, 43( 6), 934-941.
[2]	李爱梅, 彭元, 熊冠星 . ( 2015). 孕妇更长计远虑?——怀孕对女性跨期决策偏好的影响. 心理学报, 47( 11), 1360-1370.
[3]	李恒 . ( 2015). 压力感对汉语使用者时间隐喻理解的影响. 现代外语, 38( 6), 770-778.
[4]	李恒 . ( 2016). 时空隐喻的心理现实性:手势和手语的视角. 心理科学, 39( 5), 1080-1085.
[5]	李恒, 张积家 . ( 2016). 听觉任务下汉语母语者对不同类型时间句的加工. 心理学报, 48( 6), 617-624. doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00617 URL
[6]	刘馨元, 张志杰 . ( 2016). 不同时间关注点下的空间-时间联合编码效应. 心理科学, 39( 2), 279-284.
[7]	叶浩生 . ( 2010). 具身认知: 认知心理学的新取向. 心理科学进展, 18( 5), 705-710.
[8]	Barsalou, L. W . ( 1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22( 4), 577-609.
[9]	Barsalou, L. W . ( 2016). On staying grounded and avoiding quixotic dead ends. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23( 4), 1122-1142. doi: 10.3758/s13423-016-1028-3 URL pmid: 27112560
[10]	Bender, A., & Beller, S. (2014). Mapping spatial frames of reference onto time: A review of theoretical accounts and empirical findings. Cognition, 132, 342-382. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.03.016 URL pmid: 24873738
[11]	Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75, 1-28. doi: 10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00073-6 URL pmid: 10815775
[12]	Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43( 1), 1-22. doi: 10.1006/cogp.2001.0748 URL pmid: 11487292
[13]	Boroditsky, L., & Ramscar, M. (2002). The roles of body and mind in abstract thought. Psychological Science, 13( 2), 185-189. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00434 URL pmid: 11934006
[14]	Casasanto, D. (2016). Temporal language and temporal thinking may not go hand in hand. In B. Lewandowska- Tomaszczyk (Ed.), Conceptualizations of time( pp. 169- 186). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
[15]	Casasanto, D., & Bottini, R. (2014). Mirror reading can reverse the flow of time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143( 2), 473-479. doi: 10.1037/a0033297 URL pmid: 23773158
[16]	Casasanto, D., & Jasmin, K. (2012). The hands of time: Temporal gestures in English speakers. Cognitive Linguistics, 23( 4), 643-674.Chen, J. Y., 427-436. doi: 10.1515/cog-2012-0020 URL
[17]	Chen, J. Y., & O’Seaghdha, P. G . ( 2013). Do Mandarin and English speakers think about time differently? Review of existing evidence and some new data. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 41, 338-358. doi: 10.1215/10679847-2144914 URL
[18]	Cienki, A. J . ( 1998). Metaphoric gestures and some of their relations to verbal metaphoric expressions. In J.-P. Koenig (Ed.), Discourse and cognition: Bridging the gap( pp. 189-204). Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
[19]	Clark H. H. ( 1973). Space, time, semantics and the child. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and acquisition of language (pp. 27-63). New York, NY: Academic Press.
[20]	de la Fuente J., Santiago J., Román, A, Dumitrache C., & Casasanto D . ( 2014). When you think about it, your past is in front of you: How culture shapes spatial conceptions of time. Psychological Science, 25, 1682-1690. doi: 10.1177/0956797614534695 URL
[21]	Duffy, S. E., & Feist, M. I . ( 2014). Individual differences in the interpretation of ambiguous statements about time. Cognitive Linguistics, 25( 1), 29-54.
[22]	Eikmeier V., Alex-Ruf S., Maienborn C., & Ulrich R . ( 2015). How strongly linked are mental time and space along the left-right axis? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 1878-1883. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000129 URL pmid: 25961360
[23]	Evans, V. (2004). The structure of time: Language, meaning, and temporal cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
[24]	Fuhrman O., McCormick K., Chen E., Jiang H. D., Shu D. F., Mao S. M., & Boroditsky L . ( 2011). How linguistic and cultural forces shape conceptions of time: English and Mandarin time in 3D. Cognitive Science, 35, 1305-1328. doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01193.x URL pmid: 21884222
[25]	Gibbs R. W.,Jr.( 2017). Metaphor Wars: Conceptual metaphors in human life Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Conceptual metaphors in human life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[26]	Gu Y., Zheng Y. Q., & Swerts M . ( 2016). Which is in front of Chinese people: Past or Future? A study on Chinese people’s space-time mapping. In A. Papafragou, D. Grodner, D. Mirman, & J. C. Trueswell (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th annual conference of the cognitive science society(pp. 2603-2608). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
[27]	Haser, V. (2005). Metaphor, metonymy, and experientialist philosophy: Challenging cognitive semantics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
[28]	Hendricks, R. K., & Boroditsky, L. (2017). New space-time metaphors foster new nonlinguistic representations. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9, 800-818. doi: 10.1111/tops.12279 URL pmid: 28635107
[29]	January, D., & Kako, E. (2007). Re-evaluating evidence for linguistic relativity: Reply to Boroditsky (2001). Cognition, 104, 417-426. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2006.07.008 URL pmid: 16914131
[30]	Ji L. J., Guo T. Y., Zhang Z. Y., & Messervey D . ( 2009). Looking into the past: Cultural differences in perception and representation of past information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 761-769. doi: 10.1037/a0014498 URL pmid: 19309200
[31]	Lakoff G. , & Johnson, M.( 1980) . Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[32]	Laudau, M. J . ( 2016). Conceptual metaphor in social psychology: The poetics of everyday life. New York, NY: Routledge.
[33]	Li, H. (2017). Barbara Lewandowska-tomaszczyk: Conceptualizations of time. Cognitive Linguistics, 28( 2), 361-370. doi: 10.1515/cog-2016-0122 URL
[34]	Li, H., & Cao, Y. (2017). Personal attitudes toward time: The relationship between temporal focus, space-time mappings and real life experiences. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58( 3), 193-198. doi: 10.1111/sjop.12358 URL pmid: 28266035
[35]	Li, H., & Cao, Y. (2018). The hope of the future: The experience of pregnancy influences women’s implicit space-time mappings. The Journal of Social Psychology, 158, 152-156. doi: 10.1080/00224545.2017.1297289 URL pmid: 28375781
[36]	McGlone, M. S . ( 2007). What is the explanatory value of a conceptual metaphor?. Language and Communication, 27( 2), 109-126. doi: 10.1016/j.langcom.2006.02.016 URL
[37]	McNeill, D. ( 1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[38]	Meier B. P., Schnall S., Schwarz N., & Bargh J. A . ( 2012). Embodiment in social psychology. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4( 4), 705-716. doi: 10.1111/tops.2012.4.issue-4 URL
[39]	Miles L. K., Nind L. K., & Macrae C. N . ( 2010). Moving through time. Psychological Science, 21( 2), 222-223. doi: 10.1177/0956797609359333 URL
[40]	Moore K. E. ( 2014). The spatial language of time. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press.
[41]	Murphy, G. L . ( 1996). On metaphoric representation. Cognition, 60( 2), 173-204. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(96)00711-1 URL
[42]	Núñez, R., & Cooperrider, K. (2013). The tangle of space and time in human cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17( 5), 220-229. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.03.008 URL pmid: 23608363
[43]	Núñez, R. E., & Sweetser, E. (2006). With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science, 30( 3), 401-450. doi: 10.1207/s15516709cog0000_62 URL pmid: 21702821
[44]	Rinaldi L., Locati F., Parolin L., Bernardi N. F., & Girelli L . ( 2016). Walking on a mental time line: Temporal processing affects step movements along the sagittal space. Cortex, 78, 170-173. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.02.013 URL pmid: 27049003
[45]	Sell, A. J., & Kaschak, M. P . ( 2011). Processing time shifts affects the execution of motor responses. Brain and Language, 117( 1), 39-44. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2010.07.003 URL pmid: 20696469
[46]	Shipp A. J., Edwards J. R., & Lambert L. S . ( 2009). Conceptualization and measurement of temporal focus: The subjective experience of the past, present, and future. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 110( 1), 1-22. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.05.001 URL
[47]	Sinha C., Sinha V. D. S., & Zinken J . ( 2016). When time is not space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Ed.), Conceptualizations of time( pp. 151-186). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/hcp.52.08sin URL
[48]	Sinha C., Sinha V. D. S., Zinken J., & Sampaio W . ( 2011). When time is not space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. Language and Cognition, 3( 1), 137-169. doi: 10.1515/langcog.2011.006 URL
[49]	Stocker K., Hartmann M., Martarelli C. S., & Mast F. W . ( 2016). Eye movements reveal mental looking through time. Cognitive Science, 40( 7), 1648-1670. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12301 URL
[50]	Sullivan, K., & Bui, L. T . ( 2016). With the future coming up behind them: Evidence that time approaches from behind in Vietnamese. Cognitive Linguistics, 27( 2), 205-233. doi: 10.1515/cog-2015-0066 URL
[51]	Torralbo A., Santiago J., & Lupiáñez J . ( 2006). Flexible conceptual projection of time onto spatial frames of reference. Cognitive Science, 30, 745-757. doi: 10.1207/s15516709cog0000_67 URL pmid: 21702834
[52]	Tse, C. S., & Altarriba, J. (2008). Evidence against linguistic relativity in Chinese and English: A case study of spatial and temporal metaphors. Journal of Cognition & Culture, 8( 3), 335-357. doi: 10.1163/156853708X358218 URL
[53]	Walker, E., & Cooperrider, K. (2016). The Continuity of metaphor: Evidence from temporal gestures. Cognitive Science, 40, 481-495. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12254 URL pmid: 26059310
[54]	Walker, E. J., & Núñez, R. (2017). Speaking, gesturing, reasoning: Methods and issues in the study. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Ed.), Conceptualization of time(pp. 67-84). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
[55]	Waliński, J. T . ( 2016). Reflection of temporal horizon in linguistic performance. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Ed.), Conceptualization of time(pp. 273-293). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/hcp.52.12wal URL
[56]	Walker E. J., Bergen B. K., & Núñez R . ( 2017). The spatial alignment of time: Differences in alignment of deictic and sequence time along the sagittal and lateral axes. Acta Psychologica, 175, 13-20. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.02.001 URL pmid: 28259726
[57]	Whorf B. L. (2000). The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.), Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 134-159). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.