In:
Review of Cognitive Linguistics, John Benjamins Publishing Company
Abstract:
According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people’s orientations of sagittal spatiotemporal mappings are conditioned by their characteristic patterns of attention to the past and/or future. While a growing body of research has investigated how a variety of psychological, social, and environmental factors associated with temporal focus shape implicit space-time mappings, little is known about whether the degree of entropy in the visual context influences spatial conceptions of time. Based on the findings that high-entropy images invoke a past-focused mindset and low-entropy images invoke a future-focused mindset, the current work explores how entropy impacts people’s temporal focus and mental representations of time. In Study 1 involving a self-report measure of temporal focus, we found that while high-entropy images increased Chinese students’ attention to the past and led to more past-in-front responses, low-entropy images increased Chinese students’ attention to the future and led to more future-in-front responses. Using both self-reported measures and other-report ratings of temporal focus, Study 2 conceptually replicated the findings of Study 1 in a more diverse population. Considered together, these results bolster support for the Temporal Focus Hypothesis that entropy triggers corresponding changes in temporal focus and in mental sagittal space-time mappings.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1877-9751
,
1877-976X
DOI:
10.1075/rcl.00161.wan
Language:
English
Publisher:
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Publication Date:
2023
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2560531-8
SSG:
7,11
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