The Proposition And Representation Of Space Time Characterized The Relationship Between The Inspection

The spatial representation of time refers to the phenomenon that time is represented with spatial concepts in languages.It was found that time is spatially represented along the three axes in the visual field:the horizontal, the vertical and the sagittal, which revealed its duality:the horizontal and vertical representation is at least propositional and the sagittal representation imagery. This paper attempted to address the relationship of the two types of the spatial representation of time.The research into the relationship of the propositional and imagery spatial representation of time can find reference from the study of proposition and imagery, where an influential theory argues that imagery is based on proposition. According to this theory, imagery is formed by searching the corresponding proposition and combining the image as the proposition dictates. Therefore, we hypothesized that the imagery spatial representation of time is based on the propositional representation.In experiment1, participants were presented with sentences describing orders of months, half of which were correct and the other half incorrect. As research indicated that the image induced by verbal information can facilitate the processing of the verbal information, we predicted that responses to correct spatial sentences would be faster and those to incorrect spatial sentences would be slower because the images induced would strengthen the understanding of incorrect information and called for even more cognitive resources to adjust the false understanding, while the processing of temporal sentences would be absent of this difference. The results of experiment partly supported our hypothesis in that although responses to correct spatial sentences showed no significant differences, participants responded processed incorrect spatial sentences significantly slower. This finding could be attributed to the imagery influence induced by the use of spatial concepts; however, an alternative explanation is also possible, which is the tendency to transform temporal comparison to numerical comparison by participants. In order to rule out this explanation, we conducted experiment2. In order to test our hypothesis, we derived from it a testable deduction:when participants are presented with temporal sentences using spatial concepts(simply referred to as "spatial sentence" after), they will not only process the sentences as propositions but also generate imagery; however, when they are presented with purely temporal sentences(simply referred to as "temporal sentence" after),they are inclined to generate propositions only. Therefore, participants’responses to spatial and temporal sentences are expected to be significantly different. By comparing their performance with the two types of sentences, we can test the deduction and ultimately the hypothesis of the study.In experiment2, participants were required to process sentences describing orders of traditional Chinese festivals, half of which were correct and the other half incorrect. Since traditional Chinese festivals were celebrated according to the lunar calendar, participants’ memory of their exact dates are expected to be relatively vague and uncertain, which made it unlikely for them to transform the festivals to respective dates and further more from dates to numbers. The same pattern of interaction would still be found if the interaction in experiment1was caused by images and would disappear if it came from the transformation from months to numbers. On contrary to our prediction, no interaction was found in experiment2. Nevertheless, a trend of interaction in the predicted direction emerged, which called for further investigation.Experiment3took a different approach from the previous two experiments:while the previous experiments examined the effects of image on verbal information processing, this one investigated the effects of imaged on subsequent visual detection. As studies showed that imaging could facilitate visual detection, we predicted that processing of spatial sentences would facilitate the subsequent visual detection if they could indeed induce images. Therefore, we presented participants with spatial or temporal sentences randomly and then presented a horizontal line in the center of the screen and asked participants to respond to the line by pressing buttons as quickly as possible. Results showed no significant effects of spatial sentence processing on visual detection.In general, results of the three experiments failed to support our hypothesis that imagery spatial representation of time is based on propositional representation. The failure of finding predicted results may be due to the uniqueness of temporal representation, the lack of sensitivity of measurements and experimental hypothesis and therefore can not rule out our research hypothesis. On the other hand, it shed light on the limitation of Kosslyn’s imagery theory.