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When people talk about the past, they tend to lean slightly back. And if folks talk about things to come they tend to lean forward. Various studies have revealed those physical attitudes. Now a study finds that people usually experience time as if we are literally moving toward the future and away from the past.
Through surveys researchers first determined that subjects perceive future events as being closer than past events, even if the events are equidistant. Then the scientists had subjects experience a virtual reality where they were either walking towards a fountain or backwards away from it. And as they walked, the subjects had to estimate the distance of a specific date. The date they were given was either three weeks ago or three weeks in the future. The participants backing away from the fountain perceived the dates as being equidistant from the present. But those walking towards the fountain estimated the future date to be closer than the past date.
The researchers interpret the finding to mean that the future feels closer because it seems like we’re literally moving towards it. Gives new meaning to the phrase, “Looking forward to seeing you.”
—Christie Nicholson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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6 Comments
Add CommentWhy is this a surprise?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe past contains many more data than the future does. We entrain much of what occurred in the past -- waking up, eating endless varieties of breakfast, having conversations on countless subjects, most of them unanticipated -- but we have finite expectations of the future. A past that contains even a fraction of what actually occurred is much larger than our prospective version of the future. A chock-full past year, then, seems to cover far more 'time' than a relatively complication-free future year will. So the future seems to move at a faster pace.
Am I missing something? I would love to be shown wrong.
Does this disparity also apply to those with problematic memories? I would predict not, if my hypothesis is correct.
Let me guess: White westerners composed the entire test group, didn't they? The way we spatially represent time is a central research topic of Stanford linguist Lera Boroditsky. Let's just say that it's not the same across cultures. If you've ever seen her speak, you wouldn't be so quick to generalize from a skewed sample.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://fora.tv/2010/10/26/Lera_Boroditsky_How_Language_Shapes_Thought
Excellent point! More than that, the sample subject populations used in the unidentified surveys evaluated in the unnamed study by unnamed researchers were most likely groups of volunteer undergraduate university students ~20 years old who have little conception of the past or future...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a fault of this podcast does not show the link (s) to the research and also other related sources!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the right links can be these:
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/03/07/0956797612458804
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/events-in-the-future-seem-closer-than-those-in-the-past.html
I think you got it - thanks!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom the press release:
"From research on spatial perception, we know that people feel closer to objects they are moving toward than those they are moving away from, even if the objects are exactly the same distance away. Because our perceptions of time are grounded in our experiences of space, Caruso and his colleagues hypothesized that the same illusion should influence how we experience time, resulting in what they call a temporal Doppler effect."
Please - "Doppler effect"!!!
I think these researchers may have leaped too far in equating an approaching train with Valentine's day, but obviously past events should not demand our attention to the same extent as impending events (an attacking lion, for example)!
Excerpts from the lyrics of two songs: "Let's forget about tomorrow, for tomorrow never comes", "Ya hemos llegado hasta aquí, y no me voy a parar, llevo el tiempo tras de mí, y no me dejo atrapar. Aquí y ahora, es lo que me importa, aquí y ahora, bailando sin parar hasta el fin". The wise comment by Niels Bohr: "It's extremely difficult making predictions, specially about the future". Salut +
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