Is the past farther than the future? A registered replication and test of the time-expansion hypothesis based on the filling rate of duration

Abstract

People feel some events to be psychologically closer, while others to be farther away. Caruso et al. (2013) reported the Temporal Doppler Effect (TDE), in which people feel that the past is farther than the future, despite an equivalent objective temporal distance. They hypothesized that movement based on the spatio-temporal metaphor implies an asymmetry in psychological distance in time and explained the TDE from this perspective. In the current study, we made a high-power (N = 2244 in total), direct replication of the study by Caruso et al. as a registered report, and examined whether temporal expansion depending on the degree of fulfillment in durations found in time perception studies is related to the TDE. We predicted that the past would be felt farther than the future because past experiences form definite and numerous memory traces, and the filling rate of duration of the past should be higher than that of the future. The results showed that psychological distance was significantly closer in the past than in the future in both Studies 1 and 2. Moreover, the filling rate of duration was significantly higher in the past than in the future, as predicted, but was negligible (Study 1) or negatively (Study 2) correlated with psychological distance. Overall, our results did not replicate the previous findings but were reversed, and the filling rate of duration failed to explain psychological distance. Based on these findings, we discuss what needs to be clarified in future TDE studies.