Elaborating time in space: the structure and function of space–motion metaphors of time

Moore, Kevin Ezra

doi:10.1017/langcog.2016.6

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Across many languages and cultures, there is a pervasive tendency for time to be represented in terms of space (Evans, ; Haspelmath, ; Moore, ; Núñez & Cooperrider, ; Stocker, Hartmann, Martarelli, & Mast, ). While there are various types of spatial metaphors for time, most attention in the literature has been paid to the mappings between front‐back axis and time (e.g., Boroditsky, ; Clark, ; Duffy, Feist, & McCarthy, ; Lakoff & Johnson, ; Moore, ; to name just a few). Research has revealed that there are systematic differences in space‐mappings in different languages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Karma or Immortality: Can Religion Influence Space‐Time Mappings?

Cao

2018

Cognitive Science

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People implicitly associate the "past" and "future" with "front" and "back" in their minds according to their cultural attitudes toward time. As the temporal focus hypothesis (TFH) proposes, future-oriented people tend to think about time according to the future-in-front mapping, whereas past-oriented people tend to think about time according to the past-in-front mapping (de la Fuente, Santiago, Román, Dumitrache, & Casasanto, 2014). Whereas previous studies have demonstrated that culture exerts an important influence on people's implicit spatializations of time, we focus specifically on religion, a prominent layer of culture, as potential additional influence on space-time mappings. In Experiment 1 and 2, we observed a difference between the two religious groups, with Buddhists being more past-focused and more frequently conceptualizing the past as ahead of them and the future as behind them, and Taoists more future-focused and exhibiting the opposite space-time mapping. In Experiment 3, we administered a religion prime, in which Buddhists were randomly assigned to visualize the picture of the Buddhas of the Past (Buddha Dipamkara) or the Future (Buddha Maitreya). Results showed that the pictorial icon of Dipamkara increased participants' tendency to conceptualize the past as in front of them. In contrast, the pictorial icon of Maitreya caused a dramatic increase in the rate of future-in-front responses. In Experiment 4, the causal effect of religion on implicit space-time mappings was replicated in atheists. Taken together, these findings provide converging evidence for the hypothesized causal role of religion for temporal focus in determining space-time mappings.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Karma or Immortality: Can Religion Influence Space‐Time Mappings?

Cao

2018

Cognitive Science

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“…First, those two dominant patterns reflect the influence of the spatial expressions of time in the language that the participants spoke. Cross-lingual studies have shown that many languages use spatial metaphors to express time in the spatial reference frame ( Moore, 2011 , 2017 ; Tenbrink, 2011 ; Brown, 2012 ). Moore (2011) has suggested that the Japanese word “mae,” which means “front” in English, is used to describe an earlier time in a temporal sequence from the field-based reference frame and to describe the future from the egocentric reference frame.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A pilot study of how the past, present, and future are represented in three-dimensional space

Yabe

Yamada

2023

Front. Psychol.

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Numerous studies have shown that the representation of temporal concepts is associated with spatial features such as position and size. In a conventional task called the “Circle Test (CT),” participants are asked to express the relative importance of the past, present, and future and to demonstrate relationships among them by drawing three circles representing the past, present, and future. Studies on various participants, including refugees, patients living with serious illnesses, and adolescents, have used it to understand the temporal perspectives of different test takers. On the other hand, several studies have suggested that concepts of time are represented in three-dimensional (3D) space. It is expected that temporal concepts of the past, present, and future could be recorded using a 3D drawing task. Here we created a 3D version of CT (the “Sphere Test [ST]”) to investigate the sagittal representation of time and to record the relative time importance and relatedness, allowing for the shielding relationships and the laws of perspective. We conducted experiments with university students to compare the results from the CT and the ST. Our results suggested that not all on-screen overlapping can be interpreted as representing a connection between two time zones in 3D space. We also found correlations between the chosen sizes of the three circles in the CT and ST, i.e., the on-screen sizes of the past and present circles were positively correlated. In contrast, we observed no correlation between the on-screen sizes of the future circles in the two tests. The alignment pattern along the sagittal axis showed different patterns from the horizontal and vertical axes. In conclusion, this study sheds new light on the third dimension of the spatial representation of time and may help us understand the relationship between temporal perspectives and other factors, including mental health.

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“…The conceptual metaphor “TIME IS SPACE” is considered as a deep metaphor for all human being ( Lakoff and Johnson, 1999 , p. 139; Fauconnier and Turner, 2008 , p. 56). Scholars have provided plentiful evidences from the following three aspects: (1) Evidence from languages and cultural artifacts ( Clark, 1973 ; Traugott, 1978 ; Tversky et al, 1991 ; Haspelmath, 1997 ; Evans, 2003 , 2005 , 2013a , 2013b ; Levinson, 2003 ; Moore, 2006 , 2011 , 2014a , b , 2017 ; Boroditsky and Gaby, 2010 ; Fuhrman et al, 2011 ; Radden, 2011 ; Tenbrink, 2011 ; Núñez and Cooperrider, 2013 ; Pamies-Bertrán and Yuan, 2020 ); (2) Evidence from co-speech gesture or other non-linguistic thought ( Casasanto and Lozano, 2006 ; Núnez and Sweetser, 2006 ; Cooperrider and Núñez, 2009 ; Casasanto, 2010 , 2016 ; Fuhrman and Boroditsky, 2010 ; Casasanto and Jasmin, 2012 ; Levinson and Majid, 2013 ; Bender and Beller, 2014 ; Cooperrider et al, 2014 ; Walker and Cooperrider, 2016 ; Li, 2017 ); (3) Evidence from private mental representations ( Boroditsky, 2000 ; Boroditsky and Ramscar, 2002 ; Kemmerer, 2005 ; Núñez et al, 2006 ; Casasanto and Boroditsky, 2008 ; Margolies and Elizabeth, 2008 ; Ding et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Spatial-time Conceptualization and Eventive-time Conceptuali...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metonymic event-based time interval concepts in Mandarin Chinese—Evidence from time interval words

Zhong

Liu

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Starting from the overwhelming view that time is metaphorically conceptualized in terms of space, this study will, on the one hand, take the time interval words into minute analysis to confirm our view of event conceptualization of time at a more basic level along with space–time metaphoric conceptualization of time at a relational level. In alignment with the epistemology of the time–space conflation of the Chinese ancestors, our view is supported by the systematic examination of evidence related to the cultural origins of the conceptualization of time, through a scrutiny of the original meanings and construction of words related to intervals of time in Mandarin Chinese. This study offers a new explanation of how: (1) the conceptualization of time in Chinese is realized through metonymic cognition and (2) words related to specific intervals of time are coined based on the metonymic conceptualization of related events or a corresponding event schema. Five major types of event-based metonymies are identified, and their interactive functions are illustrated. Based on this evidence, we argue that the double nature of both metaphoric and metonymic time conceptualization in Mandarin Chinese lies in the fact that time interval words can be used in its time categorial sense or as a time entity which suggests the etymological origins of Chinese as ideograph. It is concluded therefore that the event-based metonymy conceptualization of time can provide better insights into the characteristics of Chinese modes of thinking and its influences on the perception of and interaction with the world. This study can also serve as good evidence for the shaping effect of language on cognition.

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Elaborating time in space: the structure and function of space–motion metaphors of time

Cited by 21 publications

References 69 publications

Karma or Immortality: Can Religion Influence Space‐Time Mappings?

Karma or Immortality: Can Religion Influence Space‐Time Mappings?

A pilot study of how the past, present, and future are represented in three-dimensional space

Metonymic event-based time interval concepts in Mandarin Chinese—Evidence from time interval words

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