Cross-Cultural Differences in Mental Representations of Time: Evidence From an Implicit Nonlinguistic Task
Cross-Cultural Differences in Mental Representations of Time: Evidence From an Implicit Nonlinguistic Task
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01105.x
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发表时间：
2010-11-01
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Boroditsky, Lera
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fuhrman, Orly;Boroditsky, Lera
跨文化的人们构建时间的空间表征。然而，为代表时间而创建的特定空间布局可能因文化而异。本文研究了人们在推理时间时是否自动访问和使用文化特定的空间表征。在实验 1 中，我们要求说希伯来语和英语的人排列描绘自然事件时间序列的图片，并指出事件相对于参考点的假设位置。在这两项任务中，说英语的人（从左到右阅读）将时间序列排列为从左到右，而说希伯来语的人（从右到左阅读）则从右到左排列时间序列，复制了之前的工作。在实验 2 和 3 中，我们要求参与者对相继呈现的成对图片做出快速时间顺序判断（即，确定第二张图片是否比第一张图片显示概念上早或晚的事件时间点）。参与者使用两个相邻的键盘按键做出响应。当需要使用左响应键做出“较早”响应时，英语使用者比使用右响应键更快地做出“较早”判断。说希伯来语的人则表现出完全相反的模式。要求参与者使用与他们语言中的书写方向所建议的时空映射不一致的时空映射会产生干扰，这表明参与者在正常的时间推理过程中自动创建了与书写方向一致的空间表示。看来，即使在非语言任务中，人们在做出时间判断时也会自动访问文化特定的空间表征。
Across cultures people construct spatial representations of time. However, the particular spatial layouts created to represent time may differ across cultures. This paper examines whether people automatically access and use culturally specific spatial representations when reasoning about time. In Experiment 1, we asked Hebrew and English speakers to arrange pictures depicting temporal sequences of natural events, and to point to the hypothesized location of events relative to a reference point. In both tasks, English speakers (who read left to right) arranged temporal sequences to progress from left to right, whereas Hebrew speakers (who read right to left) arranged them from right to left, replicating previous work. In Experiments 2 and 3, we asked the participants to make rapid temporal order judgments about pairs of pictures presented one after the other (i.e., to decide whether the second picture showed a conceptually earlier or later time-point of an event than the first picture). Participants made responses using two adjacent keyboard keys. English speakers were faster to make "earlier'' judgments when the "earlier'' response needed to be made with the left response key than with the right response key. Hebrew speakers showed exactly the reverse pattern. Asking participants to use a space-time mapping inconsistent with the one suggested by writing direction in their language created interference, suggesting that participants were automatically creating writing-direction consistent spatial representations in the course of their normal temporal reasoning. It appears that people automatically access culturally specific spatial representations when making temporal judgments even in nonlinguistic tasks.