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Updated: Apr 26, 2026
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The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
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Time, space, and events in language and cognition: a comparative view
Chris Sinha1, Peter Gärdenfors
1Hunan University, Hunan, China; Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
|August 8, 2014
Summary
Humans represent time through events, distinguishing between deictic time (D-time) and sequential time (S-time). Not all cultures conceptualize time as a separate, measurable dimension.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
- Philosophy of Time
Background:
- Human cognition and language uniquely represent temporal relations.
- Distinction between event-based representations and abstract time concepts is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- Propose an event-based model for cognitive and linguistic time representation.
- Investigate universal vs. culturally constructed aspects of time perception.
- Examine the role of spatial metaphors in time conceptualization.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of cross-linguistic data on temporal representations.
- Development of a cognitive model for event structure.
- Critical examination of philosophical and linguistic theories of time.
Main Results:
- All cultures utilize both deictic time (D-time) and sequential time (S-time) representations.
- An explicit, separate time dimension is not a universal cognitive construct.
- Metric "time as such" is a cultural, not innate, concept.
Conclusions:
- Human temporal cognition is fundamentally event-based.
- The universality of time conceptualization is limited; abstract time is a cultural development.
- Spatial metaphors for time are linked to cultures that construct time as a distinct dimension.
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