Spatio - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Spatio-Temporal Metaphors and Time Estimation

Panos Athanasopoulos

(University of Reading)p.athanasopoulos@reading.ac.uk

Collaborators:Emanuel Bylund (Stockholm University)Alina Schartner (Newcastle UniversityIfigeneia Athanasiadou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)Trolle Carlsson (Stockholm University)Tin Carlsson (Stockholm University)

1Slide2

Do speakers of different languages

think differently?

2Slide3

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

“The

linguistic relativity principle

…means, in informal terms, that users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world.” Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941)3Slide4

“

No one is really sure how Whorf came up with his outlandish claims”

Steven Pinker

“utterly boring, even if true” Geoffrey Pullum

“Language infects and inflects our thought at every level. The structures of grammar enforce a discipline on our habits of thought”

Daniel Dennett

4Slide5

Modern ‘neo-Whorfian’ approaches

Evidence for Linguistic Relativity

colour

(Athanasopoulos et al., 2010; Gilbert, et al., 2006; Kay & Kempton, 1984; Roberson, Davies & Davidoff, 2000)

number

(

Casasanto

,

2005;

Frank, et al, 2008; Gordon, 2004;

Pica

,

Lemer

, Izard, &

Dehaene

, 2004;

Spelke

&

Tsivkin

, 2001

)

m

otion

(

Athanasopoulos

&

Bylund

, 2013; Gennari et al., 2002; Papafragou & Selimis, 2010)space (Levinson, 1996; Levinson et al., 2002; Li & Gleitman, 2002; Majid et al., 2004)time (Boroditsky, 2001, 2008; Chen, 2007; January & Kako, 2007; Miles et al., 2012; Núñez & Sweetser, 2006)

5Slide6

“a concept around which our whole existence revolves“

“a system to sequence events” etc.

Time

6Slide7

Crosslinguistic differences in the encoding of time

Grammatical (e.g., tense, aspect) and lexical (e.g., adverbials) devicesFocus of today’s talk: Time metaphors

Outline:Spatio-temporal metaphorsCrosslinguistic differences in time perceptionThe conditions of such differences

Time perception in bilingual speakersTime as an abstract concept7Slide8

Talking about the time that

i

s yet to happen…Swedish:framtid (‘front time’)ie ahead of us, to comeFUTUREPAST

8Slide9

Commonality

of Swedish and Aymara:

Succession on horizontal axisTalking about the time that is yet to happen…PASTFUTURE

Aymara:

qhipuru

(‘behind time’)

ie can’t be seen, unknown

9Slide10

Chinese

uses vertical

metaphors in addition to horizontal metaphorsTalking about the time that

i

s

yet

to

happen

…

PAST

Chinese:

shàng

(‘up’)

earlier, past

xià

(‘down’)

later,

future;

FUTURE

10Slide11

Commonality between these ways of talking about time: Spatial reference

”A long rope” ”A long meeting”

”They moved the car forward two meters” ”They moved the meeting forward two hours”

(e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980)Talking about time…Source domain:

SPACE

(concrete)

Target domain:

TIME

(abstract)

11Slide12

Different types of spatio-temporal metaphors are used to talk about duration:

English: Waiting for a long time long

night long party Greek: perimeno poli

(’much’) ora megali (’big’) nychta parti pou kratise poly [’party that lasted much’] Distance (Germanic languages); Quantity (Spanish, Greek)Talking about time…Duration= Distance

Duration

=

Quantity

12Slide13

Talking about time…

Black

bars indicate the proportion

of Google ‘hits’ for expressions meaning long time, and white bars for expressions meaning much time in English and Greek.Casasanto, et al in prep13Slide14

What are the implications of these linguistic encodings of time?

Do we think of time in terms of space? If so, do speakers with different spatial time metaphors think differently

about time?

Talking about time…Thinking about time…14Slide15

What are the effects of these linguistic encodings on time perception?

One way of investigating this is to have speakers of these languages looking at animations that depict different symbolic figures, and estimate their duration (Casasanto et al., 2004; 2005; 2008; 2013)

Thinking about time… Duration

15Slide16

line

=

distance

16Slide17

17Slide18

container

=

quantity

18Slide19

19Slide20

In the test, the participant is given two different kinds of information: 1) temporal information (the duration of the stimulus)

2) spatial information (the length/growth of the stimulus)If the spatial metaphors that we use to talk about time

actually influence our thinking about time, then we would expect an effect of spatial information on time perception

Thinking about time… Duration

20Slide21

A

21Slide22

B

22Slide23

A

23Slide24

B

24Slide25

Speakers of languages with length metaphors would be influenced by line length when estimating the duration of line animations, i.e:

They would

tend to think that longer

lines have a longer durationIn contrast, speakers of quantity metaphor languages would be influenced by the degree to which the containers are filled, i.e: They would think that the more a container is filled the more time has passed

Thinking

about

time

… Duration

25Slide26

Experimental design

Two measures are calculated:

Accuracy of duration estimation Spatial interference

26Slide27

slope = 0

Spatial

interference

Length/Growth (pixels)Estimated duration (ms)27Slide28

slope

=

1.39Spatial interferenceLength/Growth (pixels)Estimated duration (ms)28Slide29

Speakers of English and

Indonesian (distance languages)

Speakers of Greek and Spanish (

quantity languages)Casasanto (2005, 2008, 2013)29Slide30

Crosslinguistic differences in spatial

interference in the line task:

Crosslinguistic differences in spatial interference in the container task:

Casasanto (2005, 2008, 2013)EnglishIndonesian

Greek

Spanish

Slope

1.49

1.40

.47

.13

English

Indonesian

Greek

Spanish

Slope

.18

.51

1.24

1.16

30Slide31

Speakers of English and Indonesian were influenced by line distance when estimating time, but not by filling container growth

The opposite pattern

was found for speakers of Greek

and SpanishThese findings seem to indicate that time perception indeed differs across language groups, and it does so in a way that corresponds to spatiotemporal metaphors for duration

Casasanto

(2005, 2008, 2013)

31Slide32

In Casasanto et al. (2005, 2008, 2013), lines

and containers were preceded by a prompt that

indicated the task, i.e. TIME

DISTANCEThe conditions of language-specificity

Bylund

& Athanasopoulos (in

prep

)

removed

the

linguistic

label

of

the prompt,

leaving

only

the

symbol

32Slide33

Spatial interference, containers

[+ linguistic label]

Spatial interference

, containers [– linguistic label]Bylund & Athanasopoulos (in prep)

Spanish

Swedish

Slope

1.42

.54

Spanish

Swedish

Slope

.96

.65

p

< .05

p

> .1

33Slide34

Spatial interference,

lines [+ linguistic

label]Spatial

interference, lines [– linguistic label]Bylund & Athanasopoulos (in prep)

Spanish

Swedish

Slope

.70

1.21

Spanish

Swedish

Slope

.81

1.03

p

< .05

p

> .1

34Slide35

Crosslinguistic differences in spatial interference are reduced in the [– linguistic label] condition

The linguistic prompts trigger a set of perceptual distinctions learnt through and associated with language, thus leading the

individual to attend to perceptual attributes in a language-specific way

Bylund & Athanasopoulos (in prep)35Slide36

Associative learning: when people use a linguistic metaphor for time, they activate the corresponding mental metaphor. In doing so, they would strengthen this particular associative mapping.

As people use the dominant and less-dominant metaphors in their language according to their distributional statistics, they activate one mental metaphor more frequently than the other(s).

This should strengthen one mental metaphor, and at the same time weaken the alternative mapping(s).

Accounting for the influence of metaphor on thought36Slide37

If specific space-time associations are strengthened by frequency of use, then bilinguals might be influenced by the language they use most often

Does language shape the way we think?

37Slide38

L1 Spanish – L2 Swedish adult bilinguals,

living in SwedenAge of L2

acquisition: 11.5 (7.8) yearsFrequency of L1 use: 21.8 % weeklyFrequency of L2 use: 78.2% weekly

Length of residence: 20.4 (6.1) yearsExperimental conditions: Lines Linguistic labels (Swedish: tid)Bylund & Athanasopoulos (in prep)

38Slide39

Spatial

interference, lines

Spatial interference

, linesBylund & Athanasopoulos (in prep)

Spanish

-Swedish

b

ilinguals

Swedish mono

Slope

.92

1.21

Bilinguals: Spanish users

Bilinguals: Swedish users

Swedish mono

Slope

.65

1.18

1.21

p

< .05

p

> .1

p

< .05

39Slide40

Frequency of language use affects spatial interference

Spatial interference in bilinguals using Spanish more frequently converges with Spanish patterns (i.e., L1 patterns)

Spatial interference in bilinguals using Swedish more frequently converges with Swedish patterns (i.e., L2 patterns)How early in language development do mental space-time associations appear? Frequency of exposure? Learning context?

40SummarySlide41

Linguistic relativity:

People who talk about time differently also think about it differentlyWhat is the extent

of the influence of linguistic structure on cognitive processes, and what conditions suppress or promote this influence?Conceptual representation

Learning and using a specific language can shape mental representations by strengthening specific space-time associationsLanguage and Thought41Slide42

Thank you!

42Slide43

Spatial

interference, containers

Spatial interference, containers

Bylund & Athanasopoulos (in prep)Spanish-Swedish

b

ilinguals

Swedish mono

r

2

.61

.38

Slope

.68

.54

Late bilinguals

Early

bilinguals

Swedish mono

r

2

.88

.45

.38

Slope

1.01

.44

.54

p

< .05

p

> .1

p

< .05

43Slide44

Modern ‘neo-Whorfian’ approaches

Linguistic diversity: Languages encode reality in different ways

Linguistic relativity:

Speakers of different languages think and perceive the world differently

Thinking for Speaking:

Speakers structure information differently when they prepare content for speech

Indexed by verbal and co-verbal behaviour

Indexed by non-verbal cognitive behaviour

44