Research shows that our sense of time changes depending on the language we speak



American linguist

Benjamin Whorf proposed the hypothesis that ``language influences the way a person thinks.'' In fact, studying multiple languages is said to improve your cognitive abilities and make you think faster , and some languages are said to change the way you see the world. The paper points out that language differences also affect ``perceptions of the passage of time.''

The Whorfian time warp: Representing duration through the language hourglass - PubMed
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28447839/

The language you speak changes your perception of time | Popular Science
https://www.popsci.com/language-time-perception/



The paper ``Whorf's Time Warp,'' published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, an academic journal of the American Psychological Association, by Emmanuel Byland, a researcher in general linguistics at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, and his colleagues is a study of language and the sense of time. This is a study of the relationship between A common belief is that ``abstract concepts like time are universal to all humankind,'' but some linguists argue that ``speakers of different languages use different words to describe time.'' Some people think that it affects the sense of time because it expresses it. This is the ' linguistic relativity hypothesis .'

For example, in English, Swedish, and Japanese, we tend to think of time in terms of distance, such as 'long time.' On the other hand, in Spanish and Greek, there is a tendency to think of time in terms of quantity, like ``a certain container being filled.''



Byland and his colleagues showed a Swedish-speaking group and a Spanish-speaking group an animation of a line slowly growing and a container filling up. According to our a priori hypothesis, Swedish speakers think of time in terms of distance, so when they see a line growing, their time perception is more likely to be affected by the speed of the line, whereas Spanish speakers think of time in terms of quantity, so their time perception is more likely to be influenced by the speed of the line. I guessed that he wasn't good at counting the hours while watching them fill up.

As a result, for an animation in which a line was growing, Spanish speakers were able to accurately count ``3 seconds'' regardless of the speed at which the line was growing, but Swedish speakers were able to accurately count ``3 seconds'' as the line grew faster. The result was exactly as hypothesized: ``Three seconds have already passed.'' If the speed at which the lines grow is extremely short or long, they are less likely to be fooled, but when there is a certain amount of difference, Swedish speakers seem to have a hard time counting time while watching the line animation.



Additionally, when Swedish speakers saw an animation of a container being filled from the bottom, they were able to count the time without being affected by the animation, while Spanish speakers were able to count the time when the container was full. It was discovered that you can think, 'It's too much time.' 'We confirm that the way we estimate the relative passage of time is influenced by the language we speak,' the paper concludes.

However, this difference in time perception may be due to ``cultural differences between Sweden and Spain,'' as each speaker has lived in different areas of life. Therefore, Mr. Byland and his colleagues next conducted an additional experiment to confirm that the ``language difference between Swedish and Spanish'' is the cause of the sense of time.

Byland and his colleagues recruited 74 new participants who could speak both Swedish and Spanish. Then, we showed them the same ``animation where a line stretches slowly and quickly'' and ``an animation where a container fills slowly and quickly,'' but at this time, we asked them to ``count the time while watching the animation.'' These instructions were given in Swedish and Spanish respectively. The results showed that when instructions were given in Swedish, the subjects had difficulty counting the time while watching the animation of the lines stretching, and when instructions were given in Spanish, they had difficulty counting the time while watching the animation of the container. it was done. Furthermore, when the animation was shown without verbal explanation, time estimation was not affected by the type of animation.

There is a proverb that is said to have originated in Poland: 'Learning a new language gives you a new soul.' 'We cannot say for now that language either influences or does not influence thinking,' Byland said. 'What is certain is that under certain circumstances language can influence thinking. Speaking two languages. 'You can live in two worldviews at the same time and switch between them flexibly. In that sense, being bilingual is attractive.'

in Note, Posted by log1e_dh