The Developmental Emergence of the Mental Time-Line: Spatial and Numerical Distortion of Time Judgement.

Sylvie Droit-Volet,Jennifer Coull

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130465

Abstract

The perception of time is susceptible to distortion by factors such as attention, emotion, or even the physical properties of the stimulus to be timed. In adults, there is now evidence for a left-right spatial representation of time or “mental time-line”, in which short durations map to the left side of space, whereas long durations map to the right. We investigated the developmental trajectory of the mental time-line, by examining how spatial and numerical stimulus properties affect temporal bisection judgements in 3 groups of children (5, 8 or 10 year olds), as well as in adults. In contrast to previous developmental studies of the spatial representation of time, we manipulated spatial position (left-right) rather than spatial magnitude (distance) so as to pinpoint the age at which the mental time-line begins to influence the judgement of time. In addition, we manipulated spatial position symbolically, either directly, using left- or right-pointing arrows, or indirectly, using low (1) or high (9) digits. In adults and older children (10 year olds), the rightward arrow and the higher digit were judged to last longer. However, time judgements were unaffected by arrow direction and digits in the younger children. Therefore, the temporal distortions induced by symbolic representations of space (arrows) or number (digits) emerged with development, suggesting that the mental time-line is not derived from a primitive spatial representation of time but, rather, is the fruit of learning and is acquired around the age of 8-10 years old.

Highlights

What is time? In the opening sentence of his book “The child’s conception of time”, Piaget [1] responded to this question by explaining that his goal was “to place the development of the idea of time in the kinetic context outside which this concept has no meaning
Like adults, 10-year-olds’ time judgements were biased by the direction of the arrow
Cued reaction time (RT) studies have shown that the spatial position indicated by an arrow stimulus is processed automatically by adults [58, 59] and by children as young as 3–5 years of age [60]

Summary

Introduction

In the opening sentence of his book “The child’s conception of time”, Piaget [1] responded to this question by explaining that his goal was “to place the development of the idea of time in the kinetic context outside which this concept has no meaning. We are far too readily tempted to speak of intuitive ideas of time. As he later wrote, the hypothesis that he would like to defend is that psychologically time depends on “speed of movements” [2,3]. The hypothesis that he would like to defend is that psychologically time depends on “speed of movements” [2,3] PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0130465 July 2, 2015

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