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Bar graph representing the effect size of the difference between the asymmetry index of the temporal focus questionnaire with zero in each culture. Effect sizes are calculated by rank-biserial correlation. The error bars show the 95% Confidence Interval of the effect size. Statistically significant results are marked with asterisks: *p < 0.05 and ***p < 0.001.
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Does temporal thought extend asymmetrically into the past and the future? Do asymmetries depend on cultural differences in temporal focus? Some studies suggest that people in Western (arguably future-focused) cultures perceive the future as being closer, more valued, and deeper than the past (a future asymmetry), while the opposite is shown in East...
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Context 1
... the temporal focus index from the Temporal Focus Scale (personal temporal focus index), we again compared the index in each culture with zero to assess whether the cultures have an asymmetrical temporal focus regarding the amount of attention and thinking they devote to the personal past and future (Fig. 7). According to Wilcoxon rank tests, the personal temporal focus index was significantly higher than zero . But the personal temporal focus was not significantly different from zero (i.e., the temporal focus was neutral) in Turks, Spaniards, or Chinese (in all cases p > 0.2). The results remained after FDR correction. It is interesting ...
Citations
... For example, Casasanto and Bottini (2014) showed that after brief exposure to mirror-reversed or 90° rotated orthography, left-to-right readers change the direction of their mental timeline from left-to-right to right-toleft. At variance with the horizontal MTLs, which depend on cultural reading and scanning habits, front-back sagittal MTLs are grounded in the functional constraints of forward locomotion and represent a physiologically based and universal phenomenon (Hartmann & Mast, 2012;Rinaldi et al., 2016) that, in some cases, can still be modulated by culturally-based habits (Callizo-Romero et al., 2022). Given the likely different functional origins of horizontal and sagittal MTLs, future studies should assess whether the findings from the present study also extend to the sagittal front-back spatial representation of time. ...
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.
... In particular, recent research shows that there is no effect of linguistic grammar of future time references on the perceived distance of future events (Jä ggi et al., 2022), and several studies, including a re-analysis of Chen's original data set ( see Roberts, Winters, & Chen, 2015) as well as lab experiments, failed to replicate Chen's (2013) hypothesis (Chen, He & Riyanto, 2019;Thoma & Tytus, 2017). In addition, although there are studies showing that time perspective and temporal focus scale correlate to futureoriented planning or behaviour, few studies have investigated the influence of general temporal values on such aspects (Callizo-Romero et al., 2022). The study of the effect of cultural temporal focus on monetary values by Guo et al. (2012) in fact did not test participants' temporal focus. ...
We study the effect of people’s temporal values (habits of attending to past or future events) on their health, labour market performance and happiness. Participants’ (N=1177) data were initially collected in 2016 and then again in a follow-up study in 2020-2021. We find that habitually more attending to the future is negatively associated with diseases (heart attack; high cholesterol; diabetes; high-blood pressure; Covid19), but positively with health-related behaviour (eating vegetables and fruit; less smoking), health status (e.g., healthy weight; long life expectancy), income, hourly wage, financial satisfaction and happiness. Furthermore, such temporal values predict participants’ future situation of these aspects of well-being in 2020-2021, even after controlling for the 2016 baseline situation, IQ, self-control, patience, risk aversion and demographic information. Given that habitually attending to the past is likely to lead people to give less priority to the future compared to the past, we propose a temporal values and well-being hypothesis: Temporal values have consequences for people’s planning and behaviour, thus influencing individuals’ concurrent and longitudinal overall well-being. Our findings have strong implications for theories of time perception, measurements of temporal values, and for a better understanding of factors that influence people’s health, income, and happiness.
Language about time is an integral part of how we spatialize time. Factors like temporal focus can be related to time spatialization as well. The current study investigates the role of language in how we spatialize time, using a temporal diagram task modified to include the lateral axis. We asked participants to place temporal events provided in non-metaphorical, sagittal metaphorical, and non-sagittal metaphorical scenarios on a temporal diagram. We found that sagittal metaphors elicited sagittal spatializations of time, whereas the other two types elicited lateral spatializations. Participants sometimes used the sagittal and the lateral axes in combination to spatialize time. Exploratory analyses indicated that individuals' time management habits, temporal distance, and event order in written scenarios were related to time spatializations. Their temporal focus scores, however, were not. Findings suggest that temporal language plays an important role in how we map space onto time.
