{"pk":21585,"title":"Asymmetry in Language, Asymmetry in Mind: The Effect of Sagittal Time-space Metaphors on Children's Understanding of Time","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Although space helps children to grasp time, comprehending temporal metaphors remains challenging. Particularly, Mandarin has different degree of ambiguity in sagittal time-space metaphors, where ‘qian' (front/past) expresses both future-in-front and past-in-front mappings but ‘hou' (back/future) predominately expresses future-at-back mappings. Temporal metaphors with a longer duration unit (e.g., year vs. hour) also increase this challenge. We investigated: 1) when children understand sagittal time-space metaphors; 2) whether different degree of ambiguity leads children to having an asymmetric understanding of the past and future; 3) how the unit of temporal duration affects time understanding. 138 Mandarin-speaking children (3-5 years) undertook an 8-item sagittal time-space metaphors test. The results showed that age 5 is a milestone to understand sagittal time-space metaphors, and a longer unit of time duration and more ambiguous space-time metaphors hinder children's time comprehension. This study reveals the development of time cognition in non-western children and demonstrates how language impacts cognition.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Psychology; Cognition of Time; Language and thought; Language development; Language understanding"}],"section":"Papers with Poster Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0b9909n8","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Jiayu","middle_name":"","last_name":"Jiang","name_suffix":"","institution":"Syracuse University","department":""},{"first_name":"Yan","middle_name":"","last_name":"Gu","name_suffix":"","institution":"UCL","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2024-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/21585/galley/11184/download/"},{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/21585/galley/21978/download/"}]}