With the Future Behind Them: Convergent Evidence From Aymara Language and Gesture in the Crosslinguistic Comparison of Spatial Construals of Time

Núñez, Rafael; Sweetser, Eve

doi:10.1207/s15516709cog0000_62

Cited by 649 publications

(451 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Again, order judgments between two events were faster when the left hand was used to respond "before" and the right hand to respond "after" than with the opposite mapping. These data are consistent with the observation that people gesture from left to right when describing events that unfold in time (Núñez & Sweetser, 2006), and also with data from an off-line task asking participants to place stickers on a paper to represent events such as breakfast, lunch and dinner (Tversky, Kugelmass, & Winter, 1991). The latter study also found evidence suggesting that this horizontal mapping of time might be related to the habitual direction of reading and writing.…”

supporting

confidence: 87%

“…In principle, the effect produced by the temporal words could result from a direct binding between the concepts of past and future to left and right responses (Pollmann & Maertens, 2005). Núñez & Sweetser (2006) showed that when we speak about the past we gesture to the left, whereas gestures referring to the future are directed towards the right. Consistently, the results of Experiment 2 showed that past/future meanings primed a motor response toward their congruent side.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thinking about the future moves attention to the right.

Ouellet¹,

Santiago²,

Funes³

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

111

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Previous studies have shown that past and future temporal concepts are spatially represented (past being located to the left and future to the right in a mental time line). This study aims at further investigating the nature of this space-time conceptual metaphor, by testing whether the temporal reference of words orient spatial attention or rather prime a congruent left/right response. A modified version of the spatial cuing paradigm was used in which a word's temporal reference must be kept in working memory whilst participants carry out a spatial localization (Experiment 1) or a direction discrimination, spatial Stroop task (Experiment 2). The results showed that the mere activation of the past or future concepts both oriented attention and primed motor responses to left or right space, respectively, and these effects were independent. Moreover, in spite of the fact that such time-reference cues were nonpredictive, the use of a short and a long stimulus onset asynchrony in Experiment 3 showed that these cues modulated spatial attention as typical central cues like arrows do, suggesting a common mechanism for these two types of cuing.

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supporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking about the future moves attention to the right.

Ouellet¹,

Santiago²,

Funes³

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

111

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…behind a 'moving ego' on a path), Unknown is in front of ego (i.e. in front of a 'moving ego' on a path) (Núñez and Sweetser, 2006). In other words, time can be conceptualized in two different perspectives, namely moving-ego (ME) perspective, where time is considered to be a stationary entity, or moving-time (MT) perspective, where time is seen as a dynamic entity (Clark, 1973).…”

Section: 1: Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphor interpretation and use: A window into semantics in schizophrenia

Elvevåg

Helsen

Hert³

et al. 2011

Schizophrenia Research

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The nature of putative semantic anomalies in schizophrenia is controversial. Metaphor interpretation and use provide a useful methodology with which to probe semantics since metaphors are critical in reasoning processes and in how conceptual knowledge is organized.The first study examined free speech for figurative language. The second study explored whether emotional versus non-emotional metaphorical language interpretation elicits differences in the tendencies to produce idiosyncratic (bizarre) or literal interpretations or use of other metaphors to describe the meaning of a metaphor. The third study examined the interpretation of time metaphors. We expected the time perspective in ambiguous sentences to be differentially influenced by previously presented unambiguous sentences of a specific perspective, either events moving relative to a stationary observer (moving-time) or an observer moving relative to a stationary event (moving-ego). First, we found that patients used a similar amount of figurative language as control participants. Second, we did not find any difference between the groups in terms of idiosyncratic interpretations, although patients did interpret more metaphors literally and controls utilized more figurative language. Third, we did not find evidence of a difference between the groups in terms of time perspectives influencing ambiguous target sentences differentially. As operationalized here, the interpretation and use of metaphors is similar in patients with schizophrenia to that of healthy control participants. To the extent that metaphors recruit semantic processes this area of cognition is generally intact in schizophrenia.

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“…The Aymara-Indians, living secluded in the Andes, have been researched partly due to their perception of time and its linguistic expressions. In their language, they describe the past being in front of them using the word (nayra, "eye/front/sight") and the future is referred to with the word for back (qhipa, "back/behind") (Núñez & Sweetser, 2006). This understanding of temporality reminded me of post-structuralist perceptions of time and becoming as it very distinctly resonated with how time is conceptualized as interrelating syntheses in Deleuze's work (Deleuze, 1994;Williams, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%