Can Mirror-Reading Reverse the Flow of Time?

Abstract

Across cultures, people conceptualize time as if it flows along a horizontal timeline, but the direction of this implicit timeline is culture-specific: in cultures with left-to-right orthography (e.g., English-speaking cultures) time appears to flow rightward, but in cultures with right-to-left orthography (e.g., Arabic-speaking cultures) time flows leftward. Can orthography influence implicit time representations independent of other cultural and linguistic factors? Native Dutch speakers performed a space-time congruity task with the instructions and stimuli written in either standard Dutch or mirror-reversed Dutch. Participants in the Standard Dutch condition were fastest to judge past-oriented phrases by pressing the left button and future-oriented phrases by pressing the right button. Participants in the Mirror-Reversed Dutch condition showed the opposite pattern of reaction times, consistent with results found previously in native Arabic and Hebrew speakers. These results demonstrate a causal role for writing direction in shaping implicit mental representations of time.

Space and time in the sighted and blind

“…The use of an external FoR for representing temporal order is consistent with the hypothesis that the direction of the MTL depends on orthographic experience (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014;Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010;Ouellet et al, 2010). Reading text from left to right, whether with the eyes or the hands, leads to a similar horizontal representation of temporal order in which earlier times are located to the left of later times, independent of the position of one's hands.…”

“…Beyond showing a correlation between reading direction and the MTL, a training experiment demonstrated a causal role for reading experience in determining which direction time flows in people's minds. Exposing people who usually read from left to right to mirrorreversed orthography reversed the direction of their MTLs (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014).…”

“…For instance, temporal order is often represented in the mind by mean of a Mental Time Line (MTL) in which earlier and later events are mapped onto the left and right side of space, respectively. In Western cultures, people are faster to categorize earlier events by pressing a left key and later events pressing a right key compared to vice-versa (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014;Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010;Santiago, Lupiáñez, Pérez, & Funes, 2007;Urlich & Maienborn, 2010;Weger & Pratt, 2008). Accordingly, induced rightward or leftward biases of visual-spatial attention influence temporal judgments (Frassinetti, Magnani, & Oliveri, 2009;Vicario, Pavone, Martino & Fuggetta, 2011;Vicario, Caltagirone, & Oliveri, 2007), patients with left spatial neglect also neglect the "left side" of time (Saj et al, 2013), and people spontaneously gesture according to the MTL when talking about temporal relationships (Casasanto & Jasmin, 2012).…”

“…The experience of reading and writing seems to play a role in establishing the direction and orientation of the MTL (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014;Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010;Ouellet, Santiago, Israeli & Gabay, 2010;Tversky, Kugelmass & Winter, 1991). Events unfold rightward along the MTL in people who habitually read from left to right, and leftward in people who read from right to left (e.g.…”

“…For each line of text in English, readers begin on the THE MENTAL TIME LINE IN THE SIGHTED AND BLIND 4 left of the page at an earlier time, and arrive on the right of the page at a later time. This experience is apparently sufficient to cause earlier time points to become implicitly associated with one side of space and later time points with the other (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014). Other cultural conventions that tend to covary with orthography may also contribute to this space-time association; these may include graphic representation of time in calendars and graphs, temporal sequences in comic strips, and spontaneous gestures toward the past or the future.…”