And it is claimed that some groups like the Yucatec Maya or Amondawa do not represent time in terms of space at all ( Sinha et al., 2011 Le Guen and Pool Balam, 2012).īut even those representations that are compatible, in principle, with a linear spatial construct may still vary regarding the number of different time lines a person can hold (e.g., Miles et al., 2011) regarding the axis (i.e., lateral, sagittal, or vertical) along which the lines unfold and the direction in which they point (e.g., Fuhrman et al., 2011 Bergen and Chan Lau, 2012) and regarding whether the lines are anchored in the speaker's subjective present or in objective features of, say, the landscape (e.g., Boroditsky and Gaby, 2010 Núñez et al., 2012a). The latter concept in particular, with its half-axes radiating out from the conceptual (deictic) center, factually precludes the existence of a single time line. Besides the linear representation, which has invited the image of a mental time line, time can also be represented as cyclically recurring ( Le Guen and Pool Balam, 2012) or as radially extending from (or pointing toward) one's own present ( Bennardo, 2009 Bender et al., 2010). Time is the prototypical example of how variable the spatialization of abstract concepts may be (for overviews, see Galton, 2011 Bender and Beller, 2014). In particular, three sets of findings are inconsistent with a simply painted picture of cross-domain congruency: (1) the remarkable degree of variability in representations, both within and across domains (2) the deep impact of cultural practices on the shape of these representations and (3) the dependency of such representations on task specifics and context. Yet, some observations appear to be at odds with such linear representations, pointing to the possibility that these representations might be neither innate nor universal (e.g., Núñez, 2008, 2011 Bender and Beller, 2014). An increasing body of evidence related to these constructs seems to corroborate that the domains of space, time, and number are intrinsically linked in human minds, and perhaps even in human brains ( Walsh, 2003). MTL and MNL have in common that they are assumed to extend in a more or less spatial manner, along one dimension, in one direction, and potentially ad infinitum. Likewise, numbers appear to be represented along a spatially extending mental number line (MNL), as attested to in tasks using both explicit and implicit measures, such as those concerned with number line estimations ( Siegler and Opfer, 2003 Moeller et al., 2009) or with the spatial–numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect ( Dehaene et al., 1993 Wood et al., 2008). Temporal sequences and events, for instance, appear to be represented along a spatially extending mental time line (MTL), as attested to both in linguistic and non-linguistic tasks (overview in Bonato et al., 2012 Bender and Beller, 2014).
Indeed, evidence for this cross-domain mapping has accumulated over the past 25 years (e.g., Boroditsky, 2000 Fischer and Fias, 2005 Núñez and Cooperrider, 2013). It has long been proposed that humans tend to represent abstract domains such as time or number in terms of more concrete domains such as space ( Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Comparing these data across tasks, domains, and languages indicates that, even within a single domain, representations may differ depending on task characteristics, and that the degree of cross-domain alignment varies with domains and culture. Here, we report data obtained from tasks on ordered arrangements, including numbers, letters, and written text.
To shed more light on the influence of culture/language and task on such conceptualizations, we conducted a large-scale survey with speakers of five languages that differ in writing systems, preferences for spatial and temporal representations, and/or composition of number words. For instance, frames of reference for spatial descriptions vary according to task, context, and cultural background, and the features of the mental number line depend on formal education and writing direction. While the domains of space and number appear to be linked in human brains and minds, their conceptualization still differs across languages and cultures. 3Department of Psychology, Freiburg University, Freiburg, Germany.2SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.1Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.Andrea Bender 1,2 *, Annelie Rothe-Wulf 3 and Sieghard Beller 1,2
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