Content area
Full Text
In Hoerl & McCormack's (H&M's) dual systems account of temporal cognition, the primitive mechanisms and mental representations involved in “temporal updating” are not sufficient for “temporal reasoning.” A key question about the relationship between the two proposed systems is not fully addressed, however. What role, if any, do mechanisms of temporal updating play in the subsequent development of the temporal reasoning system? Despite being insufficient to support mature temporal reasoning on their own, evolutionarily ancient representations of time could nonetheless provide the initial building blocks from which the temporal reasoning system is built. Here, I will present developmental evidence suggesting that this is not the case. Instead, I propose that language and culture are the primary sources of the abstract conception of time.
Before addressing the sources of the temporal reasoning (TR) system, we must be clear about the nature of this system. H&M discuss many capacities, such as mental time travel, which they argue are only allowed by the TR system. Here, however, I will focus on their central claims about the format of this representational system itself. Specifically, they describe a model of “time itself” that is linear, unidirectional, and includes a conceptual distinction between the past and future. I concur with the assessment that there is currently no compelling evidence that non-human animals or human infants possess such a model of time.
How might the TR system be constructed in the mind of a child, and what are its developmental sources? Importantly, H&M...