In this presentation, we describe metaphors and their structure, we also discuss how temporal metaphors can be used in psychological research to better understand the nature of metaphors.

1. The Role of Agency in
Temporal Metaphors
Or:
Why Metaphors Have Still Not Been
Shown to be Psychologically Real

2. What is a metaphor?
• There are usually three parts to a metaphor
– target – the thing being talked about
– source – the metaphoric material being
predicated by the topic
– ground – the implicit connection between the
target and the source.

3. ARGUMENTS ARE WAR.
– Argument is the target, war is the source, and the
ground here includes such things as the fact that both
involve weapons – one is physical and the other is
verbal, in an argument each person is considered a
combatant, etc.
– Notice that for a sentence to be metaphoric, the
source cannot apply in a straightforward way to the
target.
– Therefore, WAR IS BLOODY does not require any
special ground for its interpretation.

4. In conclusion, there must be
some kind of mapping from the
usual meaning of WAR to the
conveyed, nonliteral meaning
ARGUMENTS.

5. Are metaphors solely a linguistic
phenomenon or are they a mode
of representation or thought?

6. – According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980) our
ordinary thinking is fundamentally metaphoric
in nature.
– They think this because they contend that a
large part of our knowledge is difficult to
represent and they are therefore understood
in the terms of more easily understood
domains via metaphor.
– Given this view, metaphors have a
representational status and they are used to
structure thinking.

7. – Murphy (1996, 1997) argues that previous
research has failed to provide evidence for
metaphoric representation – but rather it can
be explained by a structural similarity between
the target and source domains.
– On the other hand, Boroditsky (2000) states
that metaphors are not simply a linguistic
phenomena, but rather they also have a
representational status that can be used to
guide thought.

8. Using temporal metaphors as a test
• Temporal metaphors can be used as a
test if metaphors in general are
psychologically real because:
– Because time is often described in spatial
language
– We are looking forward to the future.
– The contractors are behind schedule.
– The holidays are fast approaching us.

9. So, this could lead us to think that the
more abstract domain of time is
understood in terms of a more concrete
domain space, which would be consistent
with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) claims.

10. Ego-moving & Time-moving metaphors
• Two dominant spatial metaphors are used to
describe the event sequencing aspect of
conceptual time (Clark, 1973).
• The first is the ego-moving (or moving-ego)
metaphor:
– We passed the deadline two days ago.
– With this sentence the deadline is the stationary event
and we are the moving observer moving towards the
deadline.
• The second is the time-moving (or moving-time)
metaphor:
– The deadline passed two days ago.
– With this sentence the deadline is the moving event while
the observer is stationary.

12. McGlone & Harding (1998) exp. 2
• McGlone and Harding observed that forward in terms of
spatiotemporal is ambiguous and defies classification
as either consistent with an ego-moving or time-moving
schema.
• Subjects were asked to answer a series of questions
about what day of the week a particular event would
occur where each statement would be consistent with
one of two temporal metaphors.
• Then afterwards they would answer a temporally
ambiguous question. Participants in the ego-moving
condition were more likely to pick FRIDAY – which is
consistent with an ego moving metaphor – and in the
time-moving priming condition – more likely to pick
MONDAY.

13. • Ego-moving
– We are coming up on the wedding in two days. (F)
– We passed the deadline two days ago. (M)
– We will arrive at the exam date in two days. (F)
– We reached the anniversary two days ago. (M)
– Then they tested with: The meeting originally scheduled
for next Wednesday has been moved forward two days.
• Time-Moving
– The wedding is coming up in two days. (F)
– The deadline passed two days ago. (M)
– The exam date will arrive in two days. (F)
– The anniversary reached us two days ago. (M)
– Then they tested with: The meeting originally scheduled
for next Wednesday has been moved forward two days.
McGlone & Harding (1998) exp. 2

14. • Ego-moving and Time-Moving
Metaphors are Psychologically
Real
– Boroditsky (2000) thinks that this research
demonstrates that these two metaphors or not
only language-deep – but rather they are
psychologically real.

15. • But did McGlone and Harding
(1998) demonstrate that these
temporal metaphors are
psychologically real?

16. I should have a talk with Lera.
Murphy is wrong. Metaphors are
psychologically real.
I have read your articles and you say that
metaphoric representations are psychologically
real (Boroditsky, 2000, 2001 & 2002). I have also
read some articles that say that majority of
evidence for metaphoric representations have
been linguistic in form (Murphy 1996, 1997).

17. I didn’t have to because McGlone and
Harding (1998) already did. They
provided strong evidence for two
distinct, globally consistent schemas for
sequencing events in time.
Have you shown this to be true?

18. Have they? McGlone and Harding (1998) argued
that there is a correlation between perspective
and grammatical structure:
“As with most sentences describing an
animate agent, (ego-moving) sentences
tend to assign the agent to the subject
role (e.g., We have passed the due
date.) In contrast, the animate agent in
(time-moving) sentences is the event
itself, and thus MT sentences tend to
assign the event to the subject role,
(e.g., The due date has passed).”

19. What does this say about
the psychological reality
of temporal metaphors?

20. While McGlone and Harding (1998) suggested this
as a possible confound with Gentner and Imai’s
(1992) Cognitive Science proceedings regarding a
processing effect for when one switches between
ego-moving and time-moving metaphors, their
analysis of agency is in my opinion perhaps the
cause of all your findings.

21. If so than it says that perhaps temporal metaphors
are not psychologically real and that your findings
can be explained by your participants representing
either active or passive states.
Let me show you what I mean.

22. (Or, let Lera show us what I mean.)
• Experiment 2 Psychological Science
People in a lunch line that was about 50
meters long, with an average wait time of
about 10 minutes were asked a temporally
ambiguous question.

23. People that were closer to getting their food were
more likely to answer the temporarily ambiguous
question consistent with an ego-moving
perspective – FRIDAY. People who were about
10 minutes away from getting their food were
more likely to use a time-moving perspective –
MONDAY.

24. Notice that this can easily be explained with a
passive/active distinction – with people closer to
obtaining their food being in a more active state
and people about 10 minutes away being in a
more passive state.

25. Experiment 3 Psychological Science
People who just flew in to an airport, where
about to fly out of an airport or were waiting
to pick someone up from an airport were
asked the ambiguous question and the
people who were about to fly and just flew in
were more likely to select the ego-moving
perspective – FRIDAY than people who were
waiting to pick some up were selecting both
perspectives equally.

26. Notice that the people who just flew in or
were about to fly are more active as
compared to the people who were waiting
to pick up someone were more passive.

27. Experiment 4 Psychological Science
People who just got on a train, were in the
middle of their journey or were about to get
off a train were asked the ambiguous
question and the people who just got on
and were about to get off were more likely
to answer with the ego-moving perspective
FRIDAY while people who were in the
middle of their journey were selecting both
perspectives equally.

28. Notice that the people who were about to get
on the train or were about to get off the train
are more active as compared to people who
were in the middle of their journey which is
more passive.

29. Notice how with the time-moving schema
the observer is seated and passively
moving forward and in the ego-moving
schema the observer is actively moving
forward.
Figure 1 from
Cognition

30. Figure 3 from
Cognition
Could also be:
I am going to get the flower. (active)
The Kleenex are going to come to me.
(passive)

31. But Lera claims that our thinking of
time is structured in terms of a
metaphoric relation to space.

32. While Boroditsky (2002) thinks a strong embodied
view of cognition is wrong, i.e., abstract thinking is
not just built on the physical experience itself, she
does contend that “abstract thinking is built on
representations of more experience-based
domains.”

33. “In fact, people’s representations of time are so
intimately dependent on space that when they
engage in particular types of everyday spatial
activities, (e.g., embarking on a train journey or
standing in a lunch line), they unwittingly also
change how they think about time.” (Boroditsky,
2002)

34. And again, we think that Lera is wrong.
Our experiment:
We constructed 33 sentences using only
interpersonal action verbs (Au, 1986; Semin and
Marsman, 1994) broke the sentences into 5 parts
and then scrambled those 5 parts. Subjects were
then instructed to as quickly and accurately as
possible, use the scrambled words to construct a
complete sentence.

35. in the swimming pool I
apologized to Angus
while we were

36. Sentences were either constructed in either an
active or passive role for the personal pronouns
(I and me)

37. during our lunch badgered
me Joshua
meeting last week

38. Then subjects were asked to answer the
temporally ambiguous question: Next
Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward
two days. What day is the meeting now that it
has been rescheduled?

40. What we can,
we would like to,
and cannot argue

41. What we can argue:
– Perhaps most importantly – the psychological
reality of metaphors is brought into question.
– Boroditsky’s research does not demonstrate
that your place in the spatial world is
important for how you think about time.
– We think that active/passive states are one of
the causes of the previous research on
temporal metaphors.

42. What we would like to argue:
– We think that goals, motivation,
approach/avoidance, etc. states could be
important in explaining previous research.
– And furthermore, it is interesting to consider
the possibility that the time-moving and ego-
moving metaphors and the temporally
ambiguous question can be used as an
experimental tool to access the
representational states of these complex
cognitive states.

43. What we cannot argue:
• Do people change their representational
states when they are passing through a
lunch line? Whether representing a
metaphor or a goal state or an
active/passive state it seems unlikely that
people change their representational state
when they move through a sandwich line.

44. This is likely true, but as research done by
John Bargh (i.e., 1996, 1999, and 2000) has
repeatedly shown that there is a significant
amount of complex mental processing
occurring ‘nonconsciously’.

45. In addition, subjects were never asked
repeatedly the temporally ambiguous
question and if we were to do this it seems
unlikely that they would change their
response as they would pass through the line.

46. And finally, when people were asked the
(frankly bizarre – given the context)
temporally ambiguous question they use
the information of the context they are
currently in as a starting point in their
attempt to make sense of the question.
And if they were asked repeatedly the
question they would maintain the same
context throughout. (And of course if they
were never asked the question, they
never would have used the context.)

47. Future experiments
• Follow up experiments
– If we are correct that the ego-moving
metaphors can be thought of as more
consistently active and the time-moving
metaphors as more passive then we can:

48. –Prime with ego-moving and time-
moving sentences and then test
with an action ambiguous picture.
• Similar to figure 4 cognition – but
instead - there is a man with
rollerblades on and you ask: is the
man rolling down the hill (more
passive) or skating up the hill (more
active)

49. –Then self-locomotion vs. passive
locomotion should prime subjects to
answer the temporally ambiguous
question consistent with this prime
– i.e., Friday or Monday
respectively.
• Ask people the question before, while
and after they are going up or down
an escalator, walkalator, elevator or
stairs.

50. • If we are correct that the ego-moving
metaphors can be thought of as more
consistently active and the time-
moving metaphors as more passive
then we can:

51. –Use agent or patient sentences
and then test with a spatially
ambiguous question.
•If we are able to find that agency
affects a spatially ambiguous
question then Boroditsky’s (2000)
claims about how time is
influenced by space but not visa
versa are further questioned.

52. • Other experiments:
–Testing the role of goals,
motivation, and approach
avoidance in the processing of
temporal metaphors.