title: When you think about it, your past is in front of you: how culture shapes spatial conceptions of time.
abstract: In Arabic, as in many languages, the future is "ahead" and the past is "behind." Yet in the research reported here, we showed that Arabic speakers tend to conceptualize the future as behind and the past as ahead of them, despite using spoken metaphors that suggest the opposite. We propose a new account of how space-time mappings become activated in individuals' minds and entrenched in their cultures, the temporal-focus hypothesis: People should conceptualize either the future or the past as in front of them to the extent that their culture (or subculture) is future oriented or past oriented. Results support the temporal-focus hypothesis, demonstrating that the space-time mappings in people's minds are conditioned by their cultural attitudes toward time, that they depend on attentional focus, and that they can vary independently of the space-time mappings enshrined in language.
authors: University of Granada.
authors: Juanma
authors: J
authors: de la Fuente
authors: University of Granada.
authors: Julio
authors: J
authors: Santiago
authors: University of Granada.
authors: Antonio
authors: A
authors: Román
authors: University of Granada.
authors: Cristina
authors: C
authors: Dumitrache
authors: University of Chicago casasanto@alum.mit.edu.
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Casasanto
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D018912:Arabs / Q000208:ethnology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D019365:Metaphor; D008875:Middle Aged; D009018:Morocco / Q000208:ethnology; D013030:Spain; D013995:Time; D044465:White People / Q000208:ethnology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: conceptual metaphor; cross-cultural differences; mental models; open data; space; time