The Variability of Mental Timeline in Vertical Dimension

People often use concrete spatial terms to represent abstract time. Previous studies have shown that mental timeline (MTL) is represented along a horizontal axis. Studies of the mental timeline have demonstrated that compared with English speakers, Mandarin speakers are more likely to think about time vertically (up-down) than horizontally (left-right/front-back). Prior studies have suggested that MTL in the up and down dimensions originated from temporal-spatial metaphors in language. However, there are still a large number of perceptual experiences in the up and down dimensions, such as visual and sensorimotor experience. Then does the visual experience in daily life affect the MTL in the vertical dimension? This study is aimed to investigate whether visual experience can promote or activate the opposite direction of MTL from implicit and explicit levels. The results showed that when the time information in the task was not prominent, the direction of vertical MTL cannot be affected by ascending or descending perceptual experience. While when the time information was prominent, whether the task was implicit or explicit, compared with the control group, watching the top-down scene significantly increased the top-down direction selection, while in the implicit task, watching the bottom-up scene made the top-down MTL disappear. To the best of our knowledge, our study provides the first evidence that the flexibility of space–time associations in vertical dimension extends beyond explicit and embraces even implicit levels. This study shows that the vertical MTL is activated in certain conditions and could be affected by the visual experience.

You Are Here: Pain and its Location

When we consider bodily pain, it seems we are uniquely in the realm of the first person only, with no space for a second person. In this paper, I shall argue that it is in the interplay between the first and second persons, the social dimension of language, that our use of locative spatial terms inherits its rules and constraints. This interplay, in a form of triangulation proposed by Davidson, could provide us with a viable solution to the problem of the location of bodily pain. The solution lies in adopting representationalism while recognizing the limits of the representational system.

Hands-on learning: The influence of hand gestures on children's recall of scientific information

<p>When people speak they typically also gesture. Gesture and speech form an integrated communication system, with speech conveying information in a rule-bound and sequential manner (i.e. one word follows the other in accordance with grammatical rules) while gesture conveys information holistically in a visuospatial representation. These gestural hand movements not only aid the process of speaking, but also convey important information to the listener. While observing gesture during learning can facilitate children’s understanding and remembering of novel and isolated information (e.g.(Cook, Duffy, & Fenn, 2013), observing gesture may also support children in recalling complex, discursive content. This thesis examined the role observing gesture may play in supporting children’s learning and recall of narrative, scientific content. The 7- to 9-year-old children, who participated in this program of research, learnt about the solar system either with or without accompanying gestures. Children’s recall was assessed via interviews, both at short delays (one day) and long delays (two weeks or seven months after learning). It was hypothesised that gesture would improve children’s recall by grounding the abstract scientific ideas in a physical representation, disambiguating novel terms, and providing an additional representation for children to process, store, and retrieve. In Study 1, the influence of observing gesture in supporting children’s learning and recall was examined in combination with adult initiated wh-questions. The study was also conducted in the presence of visual aids. Results indicated that observing gesture only had a limited effect on children’s recall in Study 1 (both independently and in combination with wh-questions), so Study 2 examined the role of observing gesture in the absence of additional visual and verbal supports. Children’s recall was assessed both the next day and seven months later. Study 3 then manipulated both the gesture children observed at learning and the gesture children performed during recall the next day (i.e. instructed, allowed or restricted from gesturing). Finally, Study 4 examined children’s recall of spatial terms across the three studies. The overarching results revealed that children who observed gesture during learning tended to report more spatial terms, but did not show improved recall of the facts and concepts taught. When children observed gesture they did, however, produce a greater rate of representational gestures during recall. In particular, children who observed gesture were more likely to mimic the gestures they had observed, and in doing so improve their verbal recall both within the same interview and across interviews. The instruction to produce gesture did not appear to be effective in augmenting the influence of children’s gesture production, but restricting children from gesturing was found to hinder recall. Observing gesture was only indirectly effective in supporting children’s recall. One possible explanation for this findings may be that children found it difficult to integrate the gestural and verbal information into a cohesive message. Perhaps it was only when children produced gesture that they were able to non-verbally access the encoded gestural content and convert it into speech. While children’s own gesture appears to be the driving force in improving children’s learning and recall, adults must be aware of the way they move their hands during educational lessons, as these gestures likely set the stage for how children themselves will gesture.</p>

Hands-on learning: The influence of hand gestures on children's recall of scientific information

<p>When people speak they typically also gesture. Gesture and speech form an integrated communication system, with speech conveying information in a rule-bound and sequential manner (i.e. one word follows the other in accordance with grammatical rules) while gesture conveys information holistically in a visuospatial representation. These gestural hand movements not only aid the process of speaking, but also convey important information to the listener. While observing gesture during learning can facilitate children’s understanding and remembering of novel and isolated information (e.g.(Cook, Duffy, & Fenn, 2013), observing gesture may also support children in recalling complex, discursive content. This thesis examined the role observing gesture may play in supporting children’s learning and recall of narrative, scientific content. The 7- to 9-year-old children, who participated in this program of research, learnt about the solar system either with or without accompanying gestures. Children’s recall was assessed via interviews, both at short delays (one day) and long delays (two weeks or seven months after learning). It was hypothesised that gesture would improve children’s recall by grounding the abstract scientific ideas in a physical representation, disambiguating novel terms, and providing an additional representation for children to process, store, and retrieve. In Study 1, the influence of observing gesture in supporting children’s learning and recall was examined in combination with adult initiated wh-questions. The study was also conducted in the presence of visual aids. Results indicated that observing gesture only had a limited effect on children’s recall in Study 1 (both independently and in combination with wh-questions), so Study 2 examined the role of observing gesture in the absence of additional visual and verbal supports. Children’s recall was assessed both the next day and seven months later. Study 3 then manipulated both the gesture children observed at learning and the gesture children performed during recall the next day (i.e. instructed, allowed or restricted from gesturing). Finally, Study 4 examined children’s recall of spatial terms across the three studies. The overarching results revealed that children who observed gesture during learning tended to report more spatial terms, but did not show improved recall of the facts and concepts taught. When children observed gesture they did, however, produce a greater rate of representational gestures during recall. In particular, children who observed gesture were more likely to mimic the gestures they had observed, and in doing so improve their verbal recall both within the same interview and across interviews. The instruction to produce gesture did not appear to be effective in augmenting the influence of children’s gesture production, but restricting children from gesturing was found to hinder recall. Observing gesture was only indirectly effective in supporting children’s recall. One possible explanation for this findings may be that children found it difficult to integrate the gestural and verbal information into a cohesive message. Perhaps it was only when children produced gesture that they were able to non-verbally access the encoded gestural content and convert it into speech. While children’s own gesture appears to be the driving force in improving children’s learning and recall, adults must be aware of the way they move their hands during educational lessons, as these gestures likely set the stage for how children themselves will gesture.</p>

Border regimes and temporal sequestration: An autoethnography of waiting

Research on the US–Mexico border has been overwhelmingly framed in spatial terms focusing primarily on the movements of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. This current framing and focus obfuscate the United States-Mexico border regime’s temporal dimensions and its impact on communities outside its purported purview. Through autoethnography and my own experiences as a transborder commuter, I develop and propose the concept of temporal sequestration to better understand a pernicious form of border violence that is often omitted in presentist accounts of waiting. Furthermore, I argue that waiting is best understood as a multidimensional practice, one that is relational, learned, and suffused with affect.

The Spatial Cognitive Meaning of Across

Spatial relation is a basic existent relation in the objective world, and in English, prepositions are the important spatial terms to describe spatial relations people perceive. Using Langacker&rsquo;s trajector-landmark theory from cognitive grammar, this paper attempts to analyze the cognitive process of the six main spatial meaning of English preposition across based on the entries collected by the Collins Dictionary, with data from the the Leeds Collection of Internet Corpora. The findings can be concluded: (1) The use of across should include at least a tr and a lm, and the lm cannot be covert. (2) The spatial relations across contains could be divided into simple atemporal relation and complex atemporal relation. (3) The tr in some dynamic relation of across sometimes will represent some kind of schema, such as source-path-goal schema.

The influence of transport offer on passenger traffic in the railway transport system in a post-socialist country: case study of Poland

The study examines factors influencing the number of rail passengers in Poland. The subjects of observation were 62 cities with poviat rights. The main factors influencing demand are the number of connections and the speed of trains. Therefore, we developed an original indicator – weighted number of connections, which takes into account the number of rail connections and the speed of trains. The article can be divided into two main parts: an assessment of the diversification of transport offer and transport demand in spatial terms, and an evaluation of the relationship between the variables. Poland has a large spatial diversity in terms of public rail transport offer and passenger traffic. There are three levels of city hierarchy according to the passenger number indicator: [1] Warsaw, [2] the largest agglomerations [3] other regional cities. Transport offer was found to have a statistically significant impact on transport demand.

Influence of Financial Variables on the Development of Rural Communes of Eastern Poland in 2009–2018

Communes are a place of both economic activity and creation development. They have autonomy in making decisions in the fields of financial, human, and material resources. This research was carried out with the use of a synthetic measure. The aim was to show the impact of financial variables on the development process of rural communes in eastern Poland. The data were collected in spatial terms for 484 rural communes from the region of eastern Poland. The choice of variables was conditioned by the availability of GUS data for the period 2009–2018. The distribution of the evaluation of the development and financial situation of rural communes in eastern Poland was spatially polarized. The reason for the low impact of financial conditions on the development of rural communes in eastern Poland is their dependence on income transferred from the state budget. This stiffens and at the same time stabilizes the financial economy, making it relatively insensitive to the influence of other factors. Low independence can be a significant barrier to future local development. Finance and the economy are intertwined. Actions taken with respect to these must be based on analyses that facilitate making the right decisions.

„Ich bringe euch in die Wüste der Völker“ (Ez 20,35)

Among many other peculiarities of the Book of Ezekiel, the numerous movements and spatial terms mentioned in it stand out. Using the cultural-anthropological concept that underlies rites of passage and related transitional phenomena (A. van Gennep, V. Turner) some of them can be taken as elements of a transitional process. Therefore, the spatial structure in Ezek. 20 and in the overall layout of the Book of Ezekiel is used to illustrate that the Babylonian exile is a necessary liminal phase of the transition from Israel’s status as an apostate people to a new status given by JHWH.