A future-minded lark in the morning: The influence of time-of-day and chronotype on metaphorical associations between space and time

ABSTRACT

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis (TFH), space–time mappings in people’s minds are shaped by their attentional focus. Previous research has shown that numerous cultural and individual factors underpinning temporal focus may contribute to the direction of space–time mappings in people’s mental models. However, the role of time of day in shaping spatial conceptions of time has not been investigated. In a series of three experiments, Chinese participants, who were more likely to be future-focused in the morning than afternoon, were also more likely to produce a future-in-front mapping. However, this morning future-minded effect can only be found in morning people, suggesting a mediating role of chronotype processes. Taken together, the findings across studies suggest that people’s representations of time may arise from an interaction between a person’s chronotype and time-of-day, a phenomenon that we refer to as the chronotype future-minded effect.

Notes

¹ The TFS also contains four items that describe thinking about the present. All the participants in Experiments 1, 2, and 3 responded to these four items. The results showed that there were no significant differences between the groups both in Experiments 1, 2, and 3 (ps > .72). Since they were unrelated to the main hypothesis, we did not report them in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (2014CB340502) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).