Yesterday Is History, Tomorrow Is a Mystery: An Eye-Tracking Investigation of the Processing of Past and Future Time Reference During Sentence Reading
Date
2022Author
Biondo, Nicoletta
Soilemezidi, Marielena
Mancini, Simona
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Biondo N, Soilemezidi M, Mancini S. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery: An eye-tracking investigation of the processing of past and future time reference during sentence reading. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2022 Jul;48(7):1001-1018. doi: 10.1037/xlm0001053. Epub 2021 Aug 23. PMID: 34424022.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
Abstract
The ability to think about nonpresent time is a crucial aspect of human cognition. Both the past and
future imply a temporal displacement of an event outside the “now.” They also intrinsically differ: The
past refers to inalterable events; the future to alterable events, to possible worlds. Are the past and future
processed similarly or differently? In this study, we addressed this question by investigating how
Spanish speakers process past/future time reference violations during sentence processing, while recording
eye movements. We also investigated the role of verbs (in isolation; within sentences) and adverbs
(deictic; nondeictic) during time processing. Existing accounts propose that past processing, which
requires a link to discourse, is more complex than future processing, which—like the present—is locally
bound. Our findings show that past and future processing differs, especially at early stages of verb processing,
but this difference is not limited to the presence/absence of discourse linking. We found earlier
mismatch effects for past compared to future time reference in incongruous sentences, in line with previous
studies. Interestingly, it took longer to categorize the past than the future tense when verbs were
presented in isolation. However, it took longer to categorize the future than the past when verbs were
presented in congruous sentences, arguably because the future implies alterable worlds. Finally, temporal
adverbs were found to play an important role in reinspection and reanalysis triggered by the presence
of undefined time frames (nondeictic adverbs) or incongruences (mismatching verbs).