Being (un)moved by mental time travel

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Embodied cognition
• Human sensorimotor control

Background:

• Previous research suggests mental imagery of time (past/future) and emotion can elicit spontaneous bodily motions.
• These findings imply that abstract concepts like time and emotion are represented spatially, influencing body posture.
• The embodied cognition hypothesis posits that mental simulations involve bodily states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conceptually replicate and extend the findings of Miles, Nind, and Macrae (2010) on time-based mental imagery and posture.
• To investigate whether mental imagery of emotional events also influences body posture.
• To examine the robustness of embodied effects in mental imagery of abstract concepts.

Main Methods:

• Participants engaged in mental imagery tasks involving various time intervals (past/future) and emotional valences (pleasant/unpleasant).
• Center-of-pressure (COP) changes, reflecting body sway and postural adjustments, were continuously recorded during imagery tasks.
• A within-subjects design was employed to compare postural responses across different imagery conditions.

Main Results:

• No statistically significant effects of mental imagery related to time (past vs. future) on body posture were observed.
• Mental imagery of emotional events (pleasant vs. unpleasant) did not produce significant changes in body posture.
• The study failed to replicate the clear postural effects reported in earlier research.

Conclusions:

• The embodied effects of mental imagery on body posture, particularly for abstract concepts like time and emotion, may be less robust than previously suggested.
• The findings challenge the universality of the embodied cognition hypothesis in the context of time and emotion imagery.
• Further research is needed to clarify the conditions under which mental imagery influences sensorimotor behavior.