Weger Ulrich W, Pratt Jay
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2008 Apr;15(2):426-30. doi: 10.3758/pbr.15.2.426.
The concept of time is elusive to direct observation, yet it pervades almost every aspect of our daily lives. How is time represented, given that it cannot be perceived directly? Metaphoric mapping theory assumes that abstract concepts such as time are represented in terms of concrete, readily available dimensions. Consistent with this, many languages employ spatial metaphors to describe temporal relations. Here we investigate whether the time-is-space metaphor also affects visuospatial attention. In a first experiment, subjects categorized the names of actors in a manner compatible or incompatible with the orientation of a timeline. In two further experiments, subjects categorized or detected left- or right-side targets following prospective or retrospective time words. All three experiments show compatibility effects between the dimensions of space (left-right) and time (earlier-later) and indicate that the concept of time does indeed evoke spatial associations that facilitate responses to targets at spatially compatible locations.
时间的概念难以直接观察到，但它几乎渗透到我们日常生活的方方面面。鉴于时间无法被直接感知，那么它是如何被表征的呢？隐喻映射理论认为，诸如时间这样的抽象概念是通过具体的、易于获取的维度来表征的。与此一致的是，许多语言都使用空间隐喻来描述时间关系。在此，我们研究时间即空间的隐喻是否也会影响视觉空间注意力。在第一个实验中，受试者按照与时间线方向相符或不符的方式对演员的名字进行分类。在另外两个实验中，受试者在看到前瞻性或回顾性时间词后，对左侧或右侧目标进行分类或检测。所有这三个实验都显示了空间（左 - 右）和时间（更早 - 更晚）维度之间的兼容性效应，并表明时间概念确实会引发空间联想，从而促进对空间上兼容位置的目标做出反应。
