IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0290997.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is time an embodied property of concepts?

Author

Listed:
  • Charles P Davis
  • Eiling Yee

Abstract

A haircut usually lasts under an hour. But how long does it take to recognize that something is an instance of a haircut? And is this “time-to-perceive” a part of the representation of concepts like haircut? Across three experiments testing lexical decision, word recognition, and semantic decision, we show that the amount of time people say it takes to perceive a concept in the world (e.g., haircut, dandelion, or merit) predicts how long it takes for them to respond to a word referring to that thing, over and above the effects of other lexical-semantic variables (e.g., word frequency, concreteness) and other variables related to conceptual complexity (e.g., how confusable a concept is with other, similar concepts, or the diversity of the contexts in which a concept appears). These results suggest that our experience of how long it takes to recognize an instance of a concept can become a part of its representation, and that we simulate this information when reading words. Consequently, we suggest that time may be an embodied property of concepts.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles P Davis & Eiling Yee, 2023. "Is time an embodied property of concepts?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(9), pages 1-17, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0290997
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0290997
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0290997&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0290997?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert Tsao & Jørgen Sugar & Li Lu & Cheng Wang & James J. Knierim & May-Britt Moser & Edvard I. Moser, 2018. "Integrating time from experience in the lateral entorhinal cortex," Nature, Nature, vol. 561(7721), pages 57-62, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Babak Shahbaba & Lingge Li & Forest Agostinelli & Mansi Saraf & Keiland W. Cooper & Derenik Haghverdian & Gabriel A. Elias & Pierre Baldi & Norbert J. Fortin, 2022. "Hippocampal ensembles represent sequential relationships among an extended sequence of nonspatial events," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Wenqi Chen & Jiejunyi Liang & Qiyun Wu & Yunyun Han, 2024. "Anterior cingulate cortex provides the neural substrates for feedback-driven iteration of decision and value representation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Xiaxia Xu & Lingzhen Song & Rebecca Kringel & Ileana L. Hanganu-Opatz, 2021. "Developmental decrease of entorhinal-hippocampal communication in immune-challenged DISC1 knockdown mice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-17, December.
    4. Krishna Choudhary & Sven Berberich & Thomas T. G. Hahn & James M. McFarland & Mayank R. Mehta, 2024. "Spontaneous persistent activity and inactivity in vivo reveals differential cortico-entorhinal functional connectivity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Sina Mackay & Thomas P. Reber & Marcel Bausch & Jan Boström & Christian E. Elger & Florian Mormann, 2024. "Concept and location neurons in the human brain provide the ‘what’ and ‘where’ in memory formation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. Jacob L. S. Bellmund & Lorena Deuker & Nicole D. Montijn & Christian F. Doeller, 2022. "Mnemonic construction and representation of temporal structure in the hippocampal formation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Cheng Wang & Heekyung Lee & Geeta Rao & James J. Knierim, 2024. "Multiplexing of temporal and spatial information in the lateral entorhinal cortex," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.
    8. Futing Zou & Guo Wanjia & Emily J. Allen & Yihan Wu & Ian Charest & Thomas Naselaris & Kendrick Kay & Brice A. Kuhl & J. Benjamin Hutchinson & Sarah DuBrow, 2023. "Re-expression of CA1 and entorhinal activity patterns preserves temporal context memory at long timescales," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    9. Eleanor Spens & Neil Burgess, 2024. "A generative model of memory construction and consolidation," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 8(3), pages 526-543, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0290997. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.