Cover not available
Part of
Studies in Figurative Thought and Language
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou
[Human Cognitive Processing 56] 2017
► pp. 296–321

Chapter 12
The psychological reality of spatio-temporal metaphors

| Lancaster University
| University of Cambridge
| Stockholm University

Time provides essential structure to human experience. This chapter reviews the available empirical evidence for a fundamental metaphoric structure such as time is space in figurative language and thought. The chapter is organized into three over-arching themes: Motion through time, temporal succession, and duration estimation. A large part of the experimental evidence lends support to the psychological reality of the time is space metaphor, revealing the inextricable link between conceptual metaphor in language and time perception. The review also reveals that linguistic space-time mappings may be overridden by cultural conventions, calling for further empirical cross-linguistic and cross-cultural exploration within experimental cognitive linguistics.

Keywords: duration estimation, experimental cognitive linguistics, time perception
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Motion through time
  • 3.Temporal succession
  • 4.Duration estimation
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.56.12ath
References
Alards-Tomalin, D., Leboe-McGowan, J. P., Shaw, J. D. M., & Leboe-McGowan, L. C.
2014 The effects of numerical magnitude, size, and color saturation on perceived interval duration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(2), 555–566. DOI logo
Bender, A., Beller, S., & Bennardo, G.
2010 Temporal frames of reference: Conceptual analysis and empirical evidence from German, English, Mandarin Chinese and Tongan. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10(3), 283–307. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Boroditsky, L.
2000 Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75(1), 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43(1), 1–22. DOI logo
Boroditsky, L., Fuhrman, O., & McCormick, K.
2011 Do English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently? Cognition, 118(1), 123–129. DOI logo
Buckner, R. L., & Carroll, D. C.
2007 Self-projection and the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(2), 49–57. DOI logo
Casasanto, D.
2005 Perceptual foundations of abstract thought. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
2008 Who’s afraid of the big bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic differences in temporal language and thought. Language Learning, 58(s1), 63–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Space for thinking. In V. Evans, & P. Chilton (Eds.), Language, Cognition and Space: The State of the Art and New Directions (453–478). London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Casasanto, D., & Boroditsky, L.
2008 Time in the mind: Using space to think about time. Cognition, 106(2), 579–593. DOI logo
Cienki, A.
1998 Metaphoric gestures and some of their relations to verbal metaphoric expressions. Discourse and Cognition: Bridging the Gap, 189–204.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H.
1973 Space, time, semantics, and the child. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language (27–63). New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J., Hansel, C., & Sylvester, J. D.
1953 A new phenomenon in time judgment. Nature, 172, 901–903. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, B.
1976 Aspect. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1985 Tense. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Ö.
2000 Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dehaene, S., Bossini, S., & Giraux, P.
1993 The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122(3), 371–396. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De la Fuente, J., Santiago, J., Roman, A., Dumitrache, C., & Casasanto, D.
2014 When you think about it, your past is in front of you: How culture shapes spatial conceptions of time. Psychological Science, 25(9), 1682–1690. DOI logo
Evans, V.
2004 How we conceptualise time: Language, meaning and temporal cognition. Essays in Arts and Sciences, 33(2), 13.Google Scholar
2013 Language and time: A cognitive linguistics approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D., Imai, M., & Boroditsky, L.
2002 As time goes by: Evidence for two systems in processing space → time metaphors. Language and Cognitive Processes, 17(5), 537–565. DOI logo
Jackendoff, R.
1983 Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
1999 Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. Basic Books.Google Scholar
2003 Metaphors We Live By 1980 Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S. C.
2003 Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A.
2013 The island of time: Yélî Dnye, the language of Rossel Island. Cultural Psychology, 4, 61 DOI logo
Macrae, C. N., Miles, L. K., & Best, S. B.
2012 Moving through time. Mental time travel and social behavior. In J. P. Forgas, K. Fiedler, & C. Sedikides (Eds.), Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behavior (113–126). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
McGlone, M. S., & Harding, J. L.
1998 Back (or forward?) to the future: The role of perspective in temporal language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24(5), 1211–1223. DOI logo
Miles, L. K., Nind, L. K., & Macrae, C. N.
2010 Moving through time. Psychological Science, 21(2), 222–223. DOI logo
Miles, L. K., Tan, L., Noble, G. D., Lumsden, J., & Macrae, C. N.
2011 Can a mind have two time lines? Exploring space–time mapping in Mandarin and English speakers. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18(3), 598–604. DOI logo
Moore, K. E.
2006 Space-to-time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics, 17(2), 199–244. DOI logo
Núñez, R. E., Motz, B. A., & Teuscher, U.
2006 Time after time: The psychological reality of the ego-and time-reference-point distinction in metaphorical construals of time. Metaphor and Symbol, 21(3), 133–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Núñez, R. E., & Sweetser, E.
2006 With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science, 30(3), 401–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothe-Wulf, A., Beller, S., & Bender, A.
2014 Temporal frames of reference in three Germanic languages: Individual consistency, interindividual consensus, and cross-linguistic variability. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1–23. DOI logo
Sarrazin, J.-C., Giraudo, M.-D., Pailhous, J., & Bootsma, R. J.
2004 Dynamics of Balancing Space and Time in Memory: Tau and Kappa Effects Revisited. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30(3), 411–430. DOI logo
Sinha, C., Sinha, V. D. S., Zinken, J., & Sampaio, W.
2011 When time is not space: the social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. Language and Cognition, 3(1), 137–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, D. I.
1996 From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, 17, 70–96.Google Scholar
Spreng, R. N., & Levine, B.
2006 The temporal distribution of past and future autobiographical events across the lifespan. Memory & Cognition, 34(8), 1644–1651. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suddendorf, T.
2010 Linking yesterday and tomorrow: Preschoolers’ ability to report temporally displaced events. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 491–498. DOI logo
Traugott, E. C.
1978 On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. Universals of Human Language, 3, 369–400.Google Scholar
Tulving, E.
1985 Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 26(1), 1–12. DOI logo
Tversky, B., Kugelmass, S., & Winter, A.
1991 Cross-cultural and developmental trends in graphic productions. Cognitive Psychology, 23(4), 515–557. DOI logo
Vallesi, A., Binns, M. A., & Shallice, T.
2008 An effect of spatial–temporal association of response codes: Understanding the cognitive representations of time. Cognition, 107(2), 501–527. DOI logo
Whorf, B. L.
1956 Language, thought, and reality. Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (J. B. Carroll Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Dobrovol’skij, Dmitrij
2021. On some specific features of conventional figurative language (Acerca de algunas características específicas del lenguaje figurado convencional). Studies in Psychology 42:2 ► pp. 373 ff. DOI logo
Kiklewicz, Aleksander
2021. Problem realności psychologicznej metafor konceptualnych. Prace Językoznawcze 24:4 ► pp. 7 ff. DOI logo
Li, Heng & Yu Cao
2022. Time for politics: The relationship between political attitude and implicit space-time mappings. Current Psychology 41:3 ► pp. 1184 ff. DOI logo
Nute, Kevin
2019. Changing Interpretations of Otherness in English-Language Accounts of Japanese Architecture. Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering 18:5 ► pp. 479 ff. DOI logo
Shen, Shu & Heng Li
2021. It’s owl time!: the relationship between chronotype and resolution of temporal ambiguity. Chronobiology International 38:8 ► pp. 1103 ff. DOI logo
Stamenković, Dušan, Vladimir Figar & Miloš Tasić
2023. Facing salient and non-salient time sequence orientation types expressed by adverbs in English, Mandarin and Serbian. Linguistics 61:1 ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Zanker, Andreas T.
2019. Metaphor in Homer, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 june 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.