Shared Spatial Representations And The Flexibility For Time-Space Association

People usually conduct their cognition of “time” concepts by presenting them at the domain of space. Researchers named this phenomenon as the spatial-temporal association of respond codes(STEARC) effect.According to previous research results in the domain of temporal-spatial representation, this study attempted to generalize the cognitive procession from people accepting the temporal/spatial stimuli to responding,which may including three representational architectures——direct representations,intermediate shared representations, and intermediate separate representations. The direct representational architecture is a direct association from temporal/spatial information to the left/right spatial responses. The intermediate shared representational architecture illustrates that a common spatial code is activated firstly, and then this intermediate common code lead corresponding spatial responses. The intermediate separate representational architecture is presented where both temporal and spatial information activate a distinct intermediate code that in turn conduct the spatial responses. All of these three architectures have their own evidence from the domain of temporal-spatial representation, and the intermediate shared architecture has been supported by most of these research results. However, there was no research explore the architecture types of mechanism of temporal-spatial representation directly and systematically.Aim of this research was to investigate the type of temporal-spatial representational architecture. On the base of past studies, we proposed our research hypothesis——the associate mechanism of time and space. Meanwhile this study attempted to test the flexibility of this architecture. Three experiments were designed according to a paradigm with two tasks(inducer task and diagnostic task). Stimuli were temporal concepts referring past or future and squares situated at left or right, and participants were asked to complete their judgment by manual or saccadic responses。Experiment 1 and experiment 2 tested the architecture of time and space. Participants were assigned randomly into two groups——coherence and incoherence. In the coherent group, time-space association was compatible in both inducer and diagnostic task, which was incompatible in the incoherent group. According to whether the participants of incoherence showed a reversal STEARC effect, we could refer their mechanism of representational architecture. Results supported the intermediate shared representations of time and space association. And in experiment 3, the flexibility of this architecture was investigated by separate response effectors of inducer(saccadic response) and diagnostic(manual response) task, and participants with incoherent situation showed a normal STEARC effect, so that there was a spatial response association effect.