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Updated: May 20, 2026

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language
Published on: October 13, 2018
Moving along the mental time line influences the processing of future related words
Matthias Hartmann1, Fred W Mast
1Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Muesmattstrasse 45, 3000 Bern, Switzerland. matthias.hartmann@psy.unibe.ch
Abstract:
Abstract concepts like numbers or time are thought to be represented in the more concrete domain of space and the sensorimotor system. For example, thinking of past or future events has a physical manifestation in backward or forward body sway, respectively. In the present study, we investigated the reverse effect: can passive whole-body motion influence the processing of temporal information? Participants were asked to categorize verbal stimuli to the concepts future or past while they were displaced forward and backward (Experiment 1), or upward and downward (Experiment 2). The results showed that future related verbal stimuli were categorized faster during forward as compared to backward motion. This finding supports the view that temporal events are represented along a mental time line and that the sensorimotor system is linked to that representation. We showed that body motion is not just an epiphenomenon of temporal thoughts. Passive whole-body motion can influence higher-order temporal cognition.
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