Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Humans spatialize time. This occurs within individual mindsand also in larger, shared cultural systems like language.Understanding the origins of space-time mappings requiresanalyses at multiple levels, from initial individual biases tocultural evolution. Here we present a laboratory experimentthat simulates the cultural emergence of space-timemappings. Dyads had to communicate about temporalconcepts using only a novel, spatial signaling device. Overthe course of their interactions, participants rapidlyestablished semiotic systems that mapped systematicallybetween time and space. These semiotic systems exhibited anumber of similarities, but also striking idiosyncrasies. Byforegrounding the interaction of mechanisms that operate ondisparate timescales, laboratory experiments can shed light onthe commonalities and variety found in space-time mappingsin languages around the world.