Moving Forward in Space and Time: How Strong is the Conceptual Link between Spatial and Temporal Frames of Reference?

People often use spatial vocabulary to describe temporal relations, and this increasingly has motivated attempts to map spatial frames of reference (FoRs) onto time. Recent research suggested that speech communities, which differ in how they conceptualize space, may also differ in how they conceptualize time and, more specifically, that the preferences for spatial FoRs should carry over to the domain of time. Here, we scrutinize this assumption (a) by reviewing data from recent studies on temporal references, (b) by comparing data we had collected in previous studies on preferences for spatial and temporal FoRs in four languages, (c) by analyzing new data from dynamic spatial tasks that resemble the temporal tasks more closely, and (d) by assessing the co-variation of individual preferences of English speakers across space and time. While the first set of data paints a mixed picture, the latter three do not support the assumption of a close link between referencing preferences across domains. We explore possible reasons for this lack of consistency and discuss implications for research on temporal references.