Where Are the Months? Mental Images of Circular Time in a Large Online Sample

Abstract

People may think about time by mentally imaging it in some spatial form, or as “spacetime.” In an online survey, 76,922 Norwegian individuals positioned two dots corresponding to the months of December and March on what they imagined to be their appropriate places on a circle. The majority of respondents placed December within a section of the circumference ranging from 11:00 to 12:00 o’clock, but a group of respondents chose positions around the diametrically opposite 6:00 o’clock position. A similar relationship occurred for March, where most respondents chose a position ranging from 2:30 to 3:00 o’clock but a group of respondents chose positions around 9:00 o’clock. About half of the respondents (N = 39,797) continued to fill out an online questionnaire probing their mental images related to the “year” concept. This clarified that 75% of respondents “saw” the months unfolding in a clockwise direction versus 19% in a counter clockwise fashion. Moreover, while a majority (70%) stated that they imagined the year as a “circle,” the rest indicated the use of other mental images (e.g., ellipses and spirals, lines and squares, idiosyncratic or synesthetic spatial forms). We found only weak effects or preferences for spatial forms based on respondents’ gender, handedness, age, or geographical location.

Gearing Time Toward Musical Creativity: Conceptual Integration and Material Anchoring in Xenakis’ Psappha

“…Circular templates for representing musical rhythm over time are found in essays of ethnomusicology (e.g., Becker, 1980 ; Anku, 2000 ), music theory (e.g., Toussaint, 2005 , 2013 ; Benadon, 2007 ), and the psychology of music ( London, 2004 , p. 64–69). These representations are consistent with the ubiquity of circular or spiral schemas that cultures use to anchor natural cycles ( Overton, 1994 ; Yamada and Kato, 2006 ; Laeng and Hofseth, 2019 ). All these anchors cohere with the blending template that allows human to compress regular sequences of events into cycles, giving rise to our cyclic notions of day, year, and so forth ( Fauconnier and Turner, 2002 , p. 195–198).…”

Mapping of individual time units in horizontal space

“…Third, while existing studies offer evidence for the horizontal arrangement of days and months (Gevers et al, 2003(Gevers et al, , 2004, there is no research, to the best of our knowledge, that would investigate the horizontal MTL for the hours of the day. Note that, in addition to studies that show linearly arranged horizontal MTL in days of the week, other studies report circular clockwise representations for months (Brang et al, 2010;Laeng & Hofseth, 2019;Leone et al, 2018) and hours of the day (Bächtold et al, 1998;Bock et al, 2003;Goolkasian & Park, 1980;Ristic et al, 2006;Vuilleumier et al, 2004). The latter is not only important to be able to generalize the STEARC effect across different time units; it is also necessary to compare the strength of association between the horizontal space and time in these different temporal domains.…”

“…The use of the line-bisection task allows simultaneous attribution of both (1) response-related RTs and (2) overt sensorimotor responses operationalized as the response's spatial coordinates, hence allowing both chronometric and spatial data analyses. Second, while previous studies analyzed the activation of the horizontal MTL separately for different time units (He et al, 2020;Laeng & Hofseth, 2019;Leone et al, 2018;Price, 2009), or in regards to other domains Dodd et al, 2008;Franklin et al, 2009;Ischebeck et al, 2008;Zorzi et al, 2006), we compared mappings of distinct time units by using the same experimental task along the same horizontal MTL. Third, while existing studies offer evidence for the horizontal arrangement of days and months (Gevers et al, 2003(Gevers et al, , 2004, there is no research, to the best of our knowledge, that would investigate the horizontal MTL for the hours of the day.…”

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

“…Mandarin speakers more readily use the vertical dimension when representing world events. Forty native English speakers in the United States (M = 23.5 years, SD = 2.75, n = 22 female) and 40 Mandarin speakers in China (M = 23.0 years, SD = 3.05, n = 20 female) completed the experimental tasks. There was no difference in average age across the cultures (Wilcoxon sum rank test; W = 919.5, two-tailed, P = 0.25, 95% CI for the difference in location [− 1.00, 2.00]) and the order in which the tasks were completed was counterbalanced in each sample.…”

“…Mentally representing the past and future is critical for human functioning; doing so allows us to construct a sense of personal identity and prepare for future scenarios 39 . Yet, because time is an immaterial entity, individuals and cultures have developed different ways of conceptualizing, communicating, and imagining it 40 . Through the use of a novel time representation task, we demonstrate that English and Mandarin speakers represent world events differently.…”