Enduring moments: The extended present in Chinese speakers’ orientation to event time

Chen, Jenn Yeu; Su, Jui Ju; O'Séaghdha, Pádraig G.

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2012.10.009

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Modulation in event lengths in Mandarin and English speakers corroborates the view that aspectual cue modification through grammar influences how comprehenders mentally simulate events (Bergen & Wheeler, 2010). Previous reports that Mandarin speakers tend to adopt an extended present view (Chen et al, 2013) were confirmed through event boundary markings online and offline for punctual events.…”

Section: Contributions To Event Segmentation Theorysupporting

confidence: 76%

Event Boundaries Stretched and Compressed by Aspect: Temporal Segmentation in a First and a Second Language

Vanek,

Zhang

2024

Language Learning

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Event segmentation tests have shown substantial overlaps in how adults recognize starts and endpoints as events unfold. However, far less is known about what role different language systems play in the process. Variations in grammatical aspect have been shown to influence event processing. We tested how closely first language (L1) speakers of Mandarin and English versus Mandarin learners of English as a second language (L2) align event boundaries with event‐internal changes. We used two event boundary marking tasks (online/offline) and a sorting task. Participants saw 60 animations; their task was to indicate starts and endpoints. For punctual events (e.g., breaking a wall), Mandarin L1 speakers and Mandarin learners of English L2 were significantly further from event transitions than English L1 speakers. This pattern was replicated in the untimed experiment but not in sorting transitions, jointly suggesting that Mandarin L1 and Mandarin learners of English L2 may be less attentive to segmentation of phases surrounding transitions than English L1 speakers. We argue that this variation reflects L1‐specific encoding of ongoingness.

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Section: Contributions To Event Segmentation Theorysupporting

confidence: 76%

Event Boundaries Stretched and Compressed by Aspect: Temporal Segmentation in a First and a Second Language

Vanek,

Zhang

2024

Language Learning

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“…These models were built using the lme4 and lmerTest packages in R and estimated significance using the Type III Sum of Squares. Fixed effects and their scales included: culturally adjusted income bracket (1-7, decline to respond, I don't know), socioeconomic status (1-10), financial security (1-5, decline to respond), age (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30), sex (male, female), education (high school, college, post graduate), culture (English, Mandarin), timeframe (past, future), and log k. Event name (72 total events) and participant (74 total participants) were included as random effects. In the models above, event ratings, age, SES, psychological distance, and log k were coded as continuous variables.…”

Section: Delay Discounting Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Mandarin by contrast, qián (front) is used to reference the past/before, while hòu (back) is used reference the future/after 21 . Further, the presence of tenses in English promotes temporal segmentation by clearly distinguishing what has, what is, and what will happen, while the absence of explicit tenses in Mandarin fosters temporal continuity 22 . Previous work has also shown that North Americans predict linear trends and focus on shorter, more stable time horizons, while East Asians predict cyclical patterns and consider longer time horizons 23 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delay discounting decisions are linked to temporal distance representations of world events across cultures

Croote

Lai

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Delay discounting describes the phenomenon whereby the subjective value of a reward declines as the time until its receipt increases. Individuals differ in the subjective value that they assign to future rewards, yet, the components feeding into this appraisal of value remain unclear. We examined whether temporal psychological distance, i.e. the closeness one feels to the past and future, is one such component. English speakers in the USA and Mandarin speakers in China completed a delay discounting task and organized past and future world events on a canvas according to their representation of the event's temporal position relative to themselves. Previous work has identified linguistic and cultural differences in time conception between these populations, thus, we hypothesized that this sample would display the variability necessary to probe whether temporal psychological distance plays a role in reward valuation. We found that English speakers employed horizontal, linear representations of world events, while Mandarin speakers used more twodimensional, circular representations. Across cultures, individuals who represented the future as more distant discounted future rewards more strongly. Distance representations of past events, however, were associated with discounting behaviors selectively in Mandarin speakers. This suggests that temporal psychological distance plays a fundamental role in farsighted decision-making. Time is highly abstract and intangible in that it cannot be seen, touched, heard or sensed directly, yet it is an integral component of daily decision-making. When choosing between attending a concert tonight or a weekend getaway next month, one must weigh the value of each option against the backdrop of time. Does one month feel as though it is right around the corner, or a decade away? In general, humans prefer immediate rewards to delayed rewards, a phenomenon known as temporal discounting 1,2. Previous research has shown, however, that individuals vary substantially in the degree to which they discount future rewards. Variability in discounting behavior has been associated with socioeconomic status 3 , feelings of self-continuity 4,5 , and several psychiatric disorders 6-10. Neural activity in the ventral striatum, medial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex has already been shown to track subjective value during temporal discounting 1 , but the key factors that feed into this construction of value are not well understood. Individuals' subjective perception of the time delay to receive a reward is one factor that has been shown to play a role in temporal decision-making 11-14. This line of work suggests individuals do not accurately represent objective changes in duration and instead represent future time horizons nonlinearly 11. For instance, though 12 months is objectively twice as long as 6 months, it is often perceived to be less than two times as long 12. In the current study, we focus on the role of past and future psychological distance in guiding discounting decisions, rath...

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“…In a previous study (Chen, Su & O'Seaghdha, 2011), we presented Chinese and English speakers with a set of pictures, each depicting a person performing an action (e.g., throwing a frisbee). Three temporal stages were depicted, e.g., the person is about to throw a frisbee (future), is throwing a frisbee (present), or has thrown a frisbee (past).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Extended Present of tense-less Chinese, entire actions are comprised in the present, bringing their initiation and completion closer to the center of actions but paradoxically extending their subjective durations. In the Segmented Time of tensed English, actions tend to be viewed as comprising early preparation, middle execution, and late completion phases, distancing imminent and completed actions from their centers and by the same token shrinking the center itself (Chen et al, 2011). Consistent with the hypothesis, we observed that Chinese speakers projected a narrower time window (distance between average imminent and average completed events) than English speakers when they were asked to mark the pictured actions on a timeline.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistically directed attention to the temporal aspect of action events in monolingual English speakers and Chinese–English bilingual speakers with varying English proficiency

Chen

Lee

et al. 2011

Bilingualism

Self Cite

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Chinese and English speakers seem to hold different conceptions of time which may be related to the different codings of time in the two languages. Employing a sentence–picture matching task, we have investigated this linguistic relativity in Chinese–English bilinguals varying in English proficiency and found that those with high proficiency performed differently from those with low proficiency. Additional monolingual English data, reported here, showed further that high-proficiency bilinguals performed similarly to the English monolinguals, suggesting that Chinese speakers’ sensitivity to the time of an action event might be modifiable according to the extent of their experience with a tensed language.

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Enduring moments: The extended present in Chinese speakers’ orientation to event time

Cited by 7 publications

References 27 publications

Event Boundaries Stretched and Compressed by Aspect: Temporal Segmentation in a First and a Second Language

Event Boundaries Stretched and Compressed by Aspect: Temporal Segmentation in a First and a Second Language

Delay discounting decisions are linked to temporal distance representations of world events across cultures

Linguistically directed attention to the temporal aspect of action events in monolingual English speakers and Chinese–English bilingual speakers with varying English proficiency

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