- The slides’ order came up randomly.
- There were 128 priming scenes that were used which included an image and statement. Half of them had horizontal priming, using words like ‘ahead’ and ‘behind’. The other half had vertical priming scenes, using words like ‘above’ and ‘below’.
- The scenes had statements that participants were asked true or false questions about.
- Within these slides were 16 slides with 'target statements' about time, mentioning the months of the year and whether one month was ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ than another month. The words ‘before’ and ‘after’ were also used.
- There were also 16 filler statements about months, but this time they were all false.
The dependent variable was reaction time in answering the true or false questions, which was recorded in milliseconds.
Boroditsky Results
Boroditsky found that Native English speakers were significantly quicker in answering time questions after being primed to think horizontally (2128 milliseconds) compared to when primed to think vertically (2300 milliseconds). This supports the hypothesis.
Mandarin speakers did not show a significant difference in reaction times when primed to think horizontally (2422 milliseconds) compared to when primed to think vertically (2428 milliseconds)
There were however differences in Mandarin speakers regarding which words were used in the target ‘time’ statements. When the words ‘earlier and later’ were used (which are more time related) the Mandarin speakers were faster in answering after vertical priming (2347 milliseconds) than after horizontal priming (2503 milliseconds).
People talking in different languages may communicate time differently, freepik.com
Boroditsky Conclusion
The results of the study show us that Native English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently.
Since Native English speakers were faster to answer true or false questions about time when primed horizontally compared to when primed vertically, it shows us that they think about and view time in a horizontal way.
Mandarin speakers were faster at answering true or false questions when primed vertically rather than horizontally (only when more time-related terms were used), which shows that they think about and view time in a vertical way. These findings were true for Mandarin speakers even though they were tested in English, which shows us that the way they think about time is consistent across the different languages they speak, and think in.
Some additional experiments were also done as part of this study. In the 2nd experiment, Boroditsky found that the age people learn a new language affects the extent to how much their thinking changes.
For example, Mandarin speakers who learn English later in life would think about time in a vertical way more than those who learnt English at an earlier time.
In the 3rd experiment, she found that when teaching a Native English speaker to speak about time in a vertical way (e.g., Monday is above Tuesday), they also got results similar to the Mandarin speakers, showing that language affects how one thinks.
All three experiments provide evidence for the fact that the way we speak (i.e. our language) affects how we think about time.
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