Is the Future the Right Time?
Abstract
Spanish and English speakers tend to conceptualize time as running from left to right along a mental line. Previous research suggests that this representational strategy arises from the participants’ exposure to a left-to-right writing system. However, direct evidence supporting this assertion suffers from several limitations and relies only on the visual modality. This study subjected to a direct test the reading hypothesis using an auditory task. Participants from two groups (Spanish and Hebrew) differing in the directionality of their orthographic system had to discriminate temporal reference (past or future) of verbs and adverbs (referring to either past or future) auditorily presented to either the left or right ear by pressing a left or a right key. Spanish participants were faster responding to past words with the left hand and to future words with the right hand, whereas Hebrew participants showed the opposite pattern. Our results demonstrate that the left-right mapping of time is not restricted to the visual modality and that the direction of reading accounts for the preferred directionality of the mental time line. These results are discussed in the context of a possible mechanism underlying the effects of reading direction on highly abstract conceptual representations.
References
(2006). Orthographic directionality and thematic role illustration in English and Arabic. Brain and Language, 97, 306–316.
(2002). Spatial bias: Effects of early reading direction on Korean subjects. Neuropsychologia, 40, 1003–1012.
(1982). Toward a cognitive psychology of syntax: Information processing contributions to sentence formulation. Psychological Review, 89, 1–47.
(2001). Does language shape thought? English and Mandarin speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 1–22.
(2008). Do English and Mandarin speakers think differently about time?. In , Proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 427–431). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
(1968). Asymmetries of pattern perception observed in Israelis. Neuropsychologia, 6, 73–88.
(1999). Selecting a reference frame. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 1, 365–379.
(2004). How deep are effects of language on thought? Time estimation in speakers of English, Indonesian, Greek, and Spanish. In , Proceedings of the 26th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 186–191). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2005). Writing direction influences spatial cognition. In , Proceedings of the 27th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 412–417). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(1997). Verbs, events and spatial representations. Neuropsychologia, 26, 284–391.
(2007). Do Chinese and English speakers think about time differently? Failure of replicating Boroditsky (2001). Cognition, 104, 427–436.
(1995). Reading habits and line bisection: A developmental approach. Cognitive Brain Research, 3, 51–58.
(2000). Reading habits influence aesthetic preference. Cognitive Brain Research, 10, 45–49.
(1973). Space, time, semantics and the child. In , Cognitive development and the acquisition of language (pp. 27–63). New York, NY: Academic Press.
(1993). The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122, 371–396.
(2007). How writing system and age influence spatial representations of actions. Psychological Science, 18, 487–491.
(2007). Mental time-lines follow writing direction: Comparing English and Hebrew speakers. In , Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 1001–1007). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
(1950). Right and left in pictures. Art Quarterly, 13, 312–331.
(2001). Metaphor is like analogy. In , The analogical mind: Perspectives from cognitive science (pp. 199–253). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(2007). Re-evaluating evidence for the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Response to Boroditsky (2001). Cognition, 104, 417–426.
(1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
(1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(1975). Developmental trends in directionality in drawing in Jewish and Arab Israeli children. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 6, 504–511.
(2003). Directional bias in the mental representation of spatial events: Nature or culture?. Psychological Science, 14, 296–301.
(2004). Why the sunny side is up: Associations between affect and vertical position. Psychological Science, 15, 243–247.
(1981). Cross-cultural differences in directionality. International Journal of Psychology, 16, 199–211.
(1983). Directional preferences in bilingual children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 56, 747–750.
(1999). Effects of directional habits and handedness on aesthetic preference for left and right profiles. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 106–114.
(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, 1–49.
(2009). Thinking about the future moves attention to the right. doi: 10.1037/a0017176.
(2009). A multisensory interaction effect in the conceptual realm of time. Manuscript in preparation.
(2007). Time (also) flies from left to right. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 512–516.
(2008). In hindsight, life flows from left to right. Psychological Research. doi:10.1007/s00426-008-0220-0.
(2009). Flexible foundations of abstract thought: A review and a theory. In , Spatial dimensions of social thought. Mouton de Gruyter Manuscript in press.
(2002). E-Prime User's Guide. Pittsburg: Psychology Software Tools Inc.
(2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 1–21.
(1967). Auditory S-R compatibility: The effect of an irrelevant cue on information processing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 51, 300–304.
(2005). The left-to-right bias in inhibition of return is due to the direction of reading. Psychological Science, 16, 15–18.
(1994). Covert spatial orienting in audition: Exogenous and endogenous mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human, Perception and Performance, 20, 555–574.
(2006). Flexible conceptual projection of time onto spatial frames of reference. Cognitive Science, 30, 745–757.
(1991). Cross-cultural and developmental trends in graphic productions. Cognitive Psychology, 23, 515–557.
(2008). Time flies like an arrow: Space-time compatibility effects suggest the use of a mental time-line. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 426–430.
(2005). Linkages between Number Concepts, Spatial Thinking, and Directionality of Writing: The SNARC Effect and the REVERSE SNARC Effect in English and Arabic Monoliterates, Biliterates, and Illiterate Arabic Speakers. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 5, 165–190.
