From metaphorical to experienced time: Subjective experience of time's passage across self-time perspectives.
Drew Schoenfeld, Hee Yeon Im, Joan Danielle K Ongchoco
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics November 2, 2026 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-026-03344-2 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Humans Time perception Metaphor Female Young adult Action Temporal attention Self-time perspectives |
| Key findings | Participants classified as holding a "Waiter" self-time perspective tended to show less underestimation when reproducing blank interval durations than those holding a "Mover" perspective, with differences modulated by whether the interval was before or after an event and by event type (watching versus performing). The authors suggest these metaphorical perspectives may correspond to differences in subjective time experience. |
Abstract
In language and metaphor, people think of their relationship to time in one of two ways: either as themselves moving in time, or as time moving past them. Take the following question: "If your Wednesday meeting is moved forward by two days, when is the new meeting?" There are two possible answers - depending on your metaphorical "self-time perspective." If you say "Friday," then the meeting is pushed ahead as you are moving in time (reflecting a "Mover" perspective). If you say "Monday," the meeting has moved forward as time moves towards you (reflecting a "Waiter" perspective). Might these differences in thinking about time be reflected in differences in perceived time? In a large-scale exploratory study, subjects reproduced the durations of blank intervals, either before or after an event, and were categorized based on their responses to the ambiguous question above. Those who reported a Waiter perspective tended to show less underestimation in their duration reproductions compared to those who reported a Mover perspective - though the interval position (i.e., before vs. after the event) and type of event (i.e., watching an event vs. performing an action) modulated these differences. These results suggest that whether a subject's temporal position is fixed (as in a Waiter perspective) or is constantly being updated (as in a Mover perspective) has consequences for their retrospective reproductions of how much time has passed. Navigating a dynamic world may thus shape (and be shaped by) our internal reference frames, not just of space, but also of time. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: We do not only experience time as going faster or slower depending on what we are doing (e.g., consider a day in a theme park vs. waiting at the dentist's), we also think about our relationship to time itself in sometimes surprisingly categorically opposing ways: with either time as a medium that we are moving through (i.e., a "Mover" perspective), versus time moving past us (i.e., a "Waiter" perspective). Here, using a simple method of having people reproduce durations of blank intervals, we find that these metaphorical self-time perspectives may correspond to actual differences in their subjective experience of time. OPEN PRACTICES STATEMENT: Materials and analysis code are available via the Open Science Framework at: https://osf.io/2m7cn .