Dynamics of Balancing Space and Time in Memory: Tau and Kappa Effects Revisited.

Sarrazin, Jean-Christophe; Giraudo, Marie-Dominique; Pailhous, Jean; Bootsma, Reinoud J.

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.30.3.411

Cited by 59 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, it has been shown that distance judgments of visual stimuli vary depending on temporal inter-stimulus intervals (Benussi 1913) and that duration judgments are influenced by the spatial dimensions of presented stimuli (Abe 1935;see also Collyer 1977). This dependence between spatial and temporal codes was recently corroborated by Casasanto and Boroditsky (2008), who observed that their participants were unable to ignore irrelevant spatial information while performing duration judgments (see also Sarrazin et al 2004, for an overview). Moreover, Vallesi et al (2008) reported an interaction of foreperiod duration (i.e., the interval from the start of a warning signal until the presentation of an imperative stimulus) and response hand.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Priming the mental time-line: effects of modality and processing mode

Rolke

Fernández²,

Schmid

et al. 2013

Cogn Process

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The notion of a mental time-line (i.e., past corresponds to left and future corresponds to right) supports the conceptual metaphor view assuming that abstract concepts like ''time'' are grounded in cognitively more accessible concepts like ''space.'' In five experiments, we further investigated the relationship between temporal and spatial representations and examined whether or not the spatial correspondents of time are unintentionally activated. We employed a priming paradigm, in which visual or auditory prime words (i.e., temporal adverbs such as yesterday, tomorrow) preceded a colored square. In all experiments, participants discriminated the color of this square by responding with the left or the right hand. Although the temporal reference of the priming adverb was task irrelevant in Experiment 1, visually presented primes facilitated responses to the square in correspondence with the direction of the mental time-line. This priming effect was absent in Experiments 2, 3, and 5, in which the primes were presented auditorily and the temporal reference of the words could be ignored. The effect, however, emerged when attention was oriented to the temporal content of the auditory prime words in Experiment 4. The results suggest that task demands differentially modulate the activation of the mental time-line within the visual and auditory modality and support a flexible association between conceptual codes.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Priming the mental time-line: effects of modality and processing mode

Rolke

Fernández²,

Schmid

et al. 2013

Cogn Process

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Over the past century of psychophysical experimentation on space and time judgments, two effects have been demonstrated repeatedly: the Kappa effect and the Tau effect (Benussi, 1913;Bill & Teft, 1969;Cohen, 1967;Cohen et al, 1954;Collyer, 1977;Helson, 1930;Jones & Huang, 1982;Price-Williams, 1954;Sarrazin et al, 2004). In a typical experiment, three light bulbs were arranged in a row and flashed in succession, forming two spatiotemporal intervals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Is the way we think about time dependent on space even when we're not using language at all? Previous research on the experience of distance and duration has shown that the two are not independent (Benussi, 1913;Bill & Teft, 1969;Cohen, 1967;Cohen, Hansel, & Sylvester, 1954;Collyer, 1977;Helson, 1930;Jones & Huang, 1982;Price-Williams, 1954;Sarrazin, Giraudo, Pailhous, & Bootsma, 2004), but little is known about whether the relationship between the two domains is asymmetrical, in the way that has been observed in language. The purpose of the present study is to test whether the asymmetrical dependence of time on space exists even at a more basic level of the human conceptual system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although no theory on offer can fully explain Tau and Kappa effects (Sarrazin et al, 2004), the theory that appears to explain the majority of available data is the ''imputed velocity hypothesis'' (Jones & Huang, 1982), according to which Tau and Kappa effects arise because ''subjects impute uniform motion to discontinuous displays'' (pp. 128; see also Anderson, 1974;Cohen, 1967;Collyer, 1977;Price-Williams, 1954).…”

Section: The Role Of Imputed Velocity In Tau and Kappa Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Time in the mind: Using space to think about time

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do we construct abstract ideas like justice, mathematics, or time-travel? In this paper we investigate whether mental representations that result from physical experience underlie people's more abstract mental representations, using the domains of space and time as a testbed. People often talk about time using spatial language (e.g., a long vacation, a short concert). Do people also think about time using spatial representations, even when they are not using language? Results of six psychophysical experiments revealed that people are unable to ignore irrelevant spatial information when making judgments about duration, but not the converse. This pattern, which is predicted by the asymmetry between space and time in linguistic metaphors, was demonstrated here in tasks that do not involve any linguistic stimuli or responses. These findings provide evidence that the metaphorical relationship between space and time observed in language also exists in our more basic representations of distance and duration. Results suggest that our mental representations of things we can never see or touch may be built, in part, out of representations of physical experiences in perception and motor action.

show abstract

“…The kappa effect in the auditory mode was investigated in the present study. The kappa effect has been tested more often in the visual mode (Cohen, Hansel, & Sylvester, 1953Collyer, 1977;Miyatani, 1984Miyatani, -1985Sarrazin, Giraudo, Pailhous, & Bootsma, 2004), and even in the tactile mode (Goldreich, 2007;Suto, 1952Suto, , 1955Suto, , 1957. There are researches testing the kappa effect in the auditory mode, but most of them focused on the effects of frequency distance (difference), instead of spatial distance, on the perception of time duration (Cohen, Hansel, & Sylvester, 1954;Jones & Huang, 1982;Shigeno, 1986;Yoblick & Salvendy, 1970).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%