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The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension

People often use concrete spatial terms to represent abstract time. Previous studies have shown that mental timeline (MTL) is represented along a horizontal axis. Studies of the mental timeline have demonstrated that compared with English speakers, Mandarin speakers are more likely to think about ti...

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Autores principales: He, Jiaoyan, Bi, Cuihua, Jiang, Hao, Meng, Jianan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35035370
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782975
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author He, Jiaoyan
Bi, Cuihua
Jiang, Hao
Meng, Jianan
author_facet He, Jiaoyan
Bi, Cuihua
Jiang, Hao
Meng, Jianan
author_sort He, Jiaoyan
collection PubMed
description People often use concrete spatial terms to represent abstract time. Previous studies have shown that mental timeline (MTL) is represented along a horizontal axis. Studies of the mental timeline have demonstrated that compared with English speakers, Mandarin speakers are more likely to think about time vertically (up-down) than horizontally (left-right/front-back). Prior studies have suggested that MTL in the up and down dimensions originated from temporal-spatial metaphors in language. However, there are still a large number of perceptual experiences in the up and down dimensions, such as visual and sensorimotor experience. Then does the visual experience in daily life affect the MTL in the vertical dimension? This study is aimed to investigate whether visual experience can promote or activate the opposite direction of MTL from implicit and explicit levels. The results showed that when the time information in the task was not prominent, the direction of vertical MTL cannot be affected by ascending or descending perceptual experience. While when the time information was prominent, whether the task was implicit or explicit, compared with the control group, watching the top-down scene significantly increased the top-down direction selection, while in the implicit task, watching the bottom-up scene made the top-down MTL disappear. To the best of our knowledge, our study provides the first evidence that the flexibility of space–time associations in vertical dimension extends beyond explicit and embraces even implicit levels. This study shows that the vertical MTL is activated in certain conditions and could be affected by the visual experience.
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spelling pubmed-87592262022-01-15 The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension He, Jiaoyan Bi, Cuihua Jiang, Hao Meng, Jianan Front Psychol Psychology People often use concrete spatial terms to represent abstract time. Previous studies have shown that mental timeline (MTL) is represented along a horizontal axis. Studies of the mental timeline have demonstrated that compared with English speakers, Mandarin speakers are more likely to think about time vertically (up-down) than horizontally (left-right/front-back). Prior studies have suggested that MTL in the up and down dimensions originated from temporal-spatial metaphors in language. However, there are still a large number of perceptual experiences in the up and down dimensions, such as visual and sensorimotor experience. Then does the visual experience in daily life affect the MTL in the vertical dimension? This study is aimed to investigate whether visual experience can promote or activate the opposite direction of MTL from implicit and explicit levels. The results showed that when the time information in the task was not prominent, the direction of vertical MTL cannot be affected by ascending or descending perceptual experience. While when the time information was prominent, whether the task was implicit or explicit, compared with the control group, watching the top-down scene significantly increased the top-down direction selection, while in the implicit task, watching the bottom-up scene made the top-down MTL disappear. To the best of our knowledge, our study provides the first evidence that the flexibility of space–time associations in vertical dimension extends beyond explicit and embraces even implicit levels. This study shows that the vertical MTL is activated in certain conditions and could be affected by the visual experience. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8759226/ /pubmed/35035370 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782975 Text en Copyright © 2021 He, Bi, Jiang and Meng. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
He, Jiaoyan
Bi, Cuihua
Jiang, Hao
Meng, Jianan
The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension
title The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension
title_full The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension
title_fullStr The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension
title_full_unstemmed The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension
title_short The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension
title_sort variability of mental timeline in vertical dimension
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35035370
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782975
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