How Time Gets Spatial: Factors Determining the Stability and Instability of the Mental Time Line

Overview

Journal Atten Percept Psychophys

Publisher Springer

Specialties Psychiatry
Psychology

Date 2023 Jul 19

PMID 37468788

Authors

Gabriele Scozia

Mario Pinto

Michele Pellegrino

Silvana Lozito

Lorenzo Pia

Stefano Lasaponara

Fabrizio Doricchi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Left-to-right readers classify faster past events with motor responses on the left side of space and future events with responses on the right side. This suggests a left-to-right spatial organization in the mental representation of time. Here, we show that the significance and reliability of this representation are linked to the joint use of temporal and spatial codes in the task at hand. In a first unimanual Go/No-Go Implicit Association Test (IAT), attending selectively to "past" or to "future" words did not activate corresponding "left" or "right" spatial concepts and vice versa. In a second IAT, attending to both temporal (i.e., "past" and "future") words and spatial targets (i.e., "left" and "right") pointing arrows produced faster responses for congruent rather than incongruent combinations of temporal and spatial concepts in task instructions (e.g., congruent = "Go with past words and left-pointing arrows"; incongruent = "Go with past words and right-pointing arrows"). This effect increased markedly in a STEARC task where spatial codes defined the selection between "left-side" and "right-side" button presses that were associated with "past" and "future" words. Two control experiments showed only partial or unreliable space-time congruency effects when (a) participants attended to superordinate semantic codes that included both spatial "left"/"right" or temporal "past/future" subordinate codes; (b) a primary speeded response was assigned to one dimension (e.g., "past vs. future") and a nonspeeded one to the other dimension (e.g., "left" vs. "right"). These results help to define the conditions that trigger a stable and reliable spatial representation of time-related concepts.

Citing Articles

Effects of the perceived temporal distance of events on mental time travel and on its underlying brain circuits.

Casadio C, Patane I, Candini M, Lui F, Frassinetti F, Benuzzi F Exp Brain Res. 2024; 242(5):1161-1174.

PMID: 38489024 PMC: 11078804. DOI: 10.1007/s00221-024-06806-x.

The time course of the spatial representation of 'past' and 'future' concepts: New evidence from the STEARC effect.

Scozia G, Pinto M, Lozito S, Binetti N, Pazzaglia M, Lasaponara S Atten Percept Psychophys. 2024; 86(3):1048-1055.

PMID: 38413505 PMC: 11062999. DOI: 10.3758/s13414-024-02862-1.

Temporal speed prevails on interval duration in the SNARC-like effect for tempo.

Mariconda A, Murgia M, De Tommaso M, Mingolo S, Agostini T, Prpic V Atten Percept Psychophys. 2023; 86(1):263-272.

PMID: 37985595 PMC: 10770242. DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02816-z.

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