It’s all in the past: Deconstructing the temporal Doppler effect

Abstract

A recent study reported an asymmetry between subjective estimates of future and past distances with passive estimation and virtual movement. The temporal Doppler effect refers to the contraction of future distance judgments relative to past ones. We aimed to replicate the effect using real and imagined motion in both directions as well as different temporal perspectives. To avoid the problem of subjective anchoring, we compared real- and imagined-, ego- and time-moving conditions to a control group. Generally, Doppler-like distortion was only observed in conditions in which the distance between the participant and a frontal target increased. No effects of temporal perspective were observed. The "past-directed temporal Doppler effect" presents a challenge for the current theories of temporal cognition by demonstrating absence of psychological movement into the future. The effect could open new avenues in memory research and serve as a starting point in a systematic examination of how the humans construct future.

It takes me back: The mnemonic time-travel effect

“…If we assume that the mnemonic record (at least for static items) is organized along the caudal portion of the subjective time line (Aksentijevic & Treider, 2016), backward motion helps the participant traverse the line and brings them back to the time of encoding, although we do not know the precise metric relationship between motion length/duration and temporal distance. Here, two (mutually not exclusive) possibilities exist.…”

“…Caruso, van Boven, Chin and Ward (2013) discovered that when judging future or past temporal intervals, observers reliably underestimated the former. Aksentijevic and Treider (2016) made changes to this design and elicited future and past estimates from single subjects. They found both contraction and dilation of time-distance estimates with real and imaginary motion but only with respect to the past.…”

“…Thus, the study moves from the most realistic motion condition tested on a dynamic stimulus (Experiment 1) to the least realistic condition tested on static stimuli (Experiment 6) allowing us to explore the stimulus space fairly comprehensively and systematically. Based on the results of Aksentijevic and Treider (2016) and Rinaldi et al (2016), we predicted a significant memorial advantage for backward motion relative to forward and control conditions. Although those same results might predict a worsening of mnemonic performance with forward motion, a pilot study of imaginary motion and word recall revealed no difference relative to the no-motion condition.…”

“…Following MNEMONIC TIME-TRAVEL EFFECT this, participants were asked to walk 10 meters towards a fixed target (e.g. a chair or a bucket; see Aksentijevic & Treider, 2016 for detailed instructions). The starting point was marked off with duct tape.…”

“…MNEMONIC TIME-TRAVEL EFFECT The participant was placed at the starting point and instructed to close their eyes and say "now" once they were ready to proceed. The metronome was started and the participants were required to say "stop" once they felt they had reached the target (see Aksentijevic & Treider, 2016 for procedural details and detailed instructions). In the backward condition, participants were asked to turn away from the target and begin their imaginary backward walk followed by a metronome.…”