Abstract
Everyday linguistic expressions in many languages suggest that back and front space is projected onto temporal concepts of past and future (as in the sentencewe are years ahead of them). The present experiment tested the psychological reality of a different space-time conceptual metaphor—projecting the past to left space and the future to right space—for which there are no linguistic traces in any language. Participants categorized words as referring to the past or to the future. Irrelevant to this task, words appeared either to the left or right of the screen, and responses were given by keypresses of the left or right hand. Judgments were facilitated when word position and response mapping were congruent with the left-past right-future conceptual metaphor. These results are discussed in the context of current claims about the embodiment of meaning and the possible mechanisms by which conceptual metaphors can be acquired.
Article PDF
References
Alverson, H. (1994).Semantics and experience: Universal metaphors of time in English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Sesotho. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors.Cognition,75, 1–28.
Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought? Mandarin and English speakers’ conceptions of time.Cognitive Psychology,43, 1–22.
Boroditsky, L., &Ramscar, M. (2002). The roles of body and mind in abstract thought.Psychological Science,13, 185–189.
Casasanto, D., Boroditsky, L., Phillips, W., Greene J., Goswami, S., Bocanegra-Thiel, S., et al. (2004). How deep are effects of language on thought? Time estimation in speakers of English, Indonesian, Greek, and Spanish. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Eds.),Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 186–191). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Chatterjee, A., Maher, L. M., Gonzalez-Rothi, L., &Heilman, K. M. (1995). Asyntactic thematic role assignment: The use of a temporal-spatial strategy.Brain & Language,49, 125–139.
Chatterjee, A., Southwood, M. H., &Basilico, D. (1999). Verbs, events and spatial representations.Neuropsychologia,37, 395–402.
Clark, H. H. (1973). Space, time, semantics and the child. In T. E. Moore (Ed.),Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. (pp. 27–63). New York: Academic Press.
Dehaene, S., Bossini, S., &Giraux, P. (1993). The mental representation of parity and number magnitude.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,122, 371–396.
Emmorey, K. (2001). Space on hand: The exploitation of signing space to illustrate abstract thought. In M. Gattis (Ed.),Spatial schemas and abstract thought (pp. 147–174). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gevers, W., Reynvoet, B., &Fias, W. (2003). The mental representation of ordinal sequences is spatially organized.Cognition,87, B87-B95.
Gevers, W., Reynvoet, B., &Fias, W. (2004). The mental representation of ordinal sequences is spatially organized: Evidence from days of the week.Cortex,40, 171–172.
Johnson, M. (1987).The body in the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Klein, H. (1987). Time in Toba.Word,38, 173–185.
Lakoff, G. &Johnson, M. (1980).Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., &Johnson, M. (1999).Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Levine, R. (1997).A geography of time. New York: Basic Books.
Maas, A., &Russo, A. (2003). Directional bias in the mental representation of spatial events: Nature or culture?Psychological Science,14, 296–301.
Maher, L. M., Chatterjee, A., Gonzalez-Rothi, L., &Heilman, K. M. (1995). Agrammatic sentence production: The use of a temporal-spatial strategy.Brain & Language,49, 105–124.
Malotki, E. (1983).Hopi time: A linguistic analysis of temporal concepts in the Hopi language. Berlin: Mouton.
Mandler, J. M. (1992). How to build a baby: II. Conceptual primitives.Psychological Review,99, 587–604.
Mapelli, D., Rusconi, E., &Umiltà, C. (2003). The SNARC effect: An instance of the Simon effect?Cognition,88, B1-B10.
McGlone, M. S., &Harding, J. L. (1998). Back (or forward?) to the future: The role of perspective in temporal language comprehension.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,24, 1211–1223.
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, 401–450.
Özçaliskan, S. (2003). Metaphorical motion in crosslinguistic perspective: A comparison of English and Turkish.Metaphor & Symbol,18, 189–228.
Radden, G. (2004). The metaphor TIME AS SPACE across languages. In N. Baumgarten et al. (Eds.),Übersetzen, interkulturelle Kommunikation, Spracherwerb und Sprachvermittlung—Das Leben mit Mehreren Sprachen: Festschrift für Juliane House zum 60. Geburtstag (pp. 225–238). Bochum: Aks-verlag.
Rakova, M. (2002). The philosophy of embodied realism: A high price to pay?Cognitive Linguistics,13, 215–244.
Santiago, J., Román, A., & Oullet, M. (2007).Conceptual metaphors and cognitive flexibility: A review and a theory. Manuscript in preparation.
Schneider, W. (1988). Micro Experimental Laboratory: An integrated system for IBM PC compatibles.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, &Computers,20, 206–217.
Slobin, D. (1996). From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking.” In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.),Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 70–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Torralbo, A., Santiago, J., &Lupiáñez, J. (2006). Flexible conceptual projection of time onto spatial frames of reference.Cognitive Science,30, 745–757.
Tversky, B., Kugelmass, S., &Winter, A. (1991). Cross-cultural and developmental trends in graphic productions.Cognitive Psychology,23, 515–557.
Yu, N. (1998).The contemporary theory of metaphor: A perspective from Chinese. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Zebian, S. (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 & Culture,5, 165–190.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The authors are indebted to Antonio Román, Nieves Rodríguez, and Ouafa Bouachra for running the experiment and being such enthusiastic students.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Santiago, J., Lupáñez, J., Pérez, E. et al. Time (also) flies from left to right. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14, 512–516 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194099
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194099