Time does not flow without language: spatial distance affects temporal duration regardless of movement or direction

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Linguistics

Background:

• Previous research suggests people perceive time directionally in transverse space, often linked to reading/writing direction.
• This directional perception has not been tested in fully nonlinguistic paradigms, leaving its origin unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the spatial representation of time in a nonlinguistic context.
• To determine if gestures and movement influence temporal perception independently of linguistic cues.

Main Methods:

• English-speaking participants watched a video of an actor singing and gesturing.
• Participants reproduced the duration of the sung note by button presses.
• Gestures varied in distance (long vs. short) and type (moving vs. static).

Main Results:

• Longer gestures increased perceived note duration compared to shorter gestures.
• The effect of gesture distance was consistent across left-to-right and right-to-left movements.
• A weaker effect was observed with static gestures indicating spatial distance, suggesting movement is not strictly necessary.

Conclusions:

• The spatial representation of time is nondirectional.
• Spatial distance and movement contribute to temporal information processing, but are not solely responsible for directional time perception.
• Temporal perception can be influenced by nonlinguistic spatial cues, independent of reading/writing direction.