Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42690494›Full record

ArticleJournal of psycholinguistic research2026

Mapping Time Across Spatial Axes: Mental Timeline Development in 3- to 5-Year-Old Mandarin-Speaking Children.

Xiaoling He, Zhixia Yuan, Yanting Liu, Linna Na, Mengmeng Mao

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Article in Journal of psycholinguistic research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Xiaoling HeDepartment of Psychology, School of Public Policy and Administration, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, P. R. China.
Zhixia YuanDepartment of Psychology, School of Public Policy and Administration, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, P. R. China.
Yanting LiuDepartment of Psychology, School of Public Policy and Administration, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, P. R. China.
Linna NaDepartment of Psychology, School of Public Policy and Administration, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, P. R. China.
Mengmeng MaoDepartment of Psychology, School of Public Policy and Administration, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, P. R. China. maomengmeng@ncu.edu.cn.

Funding

Humanities and Social Sciences Research Projects of Jiangxi Province XL22202
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The present study investigated how Mandarin-speaking 3- to 5-year-olds map temporal sequences onto three spatial axes: sagittal, vertical, and horizontal. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, children arranged pictorial event sequences along each axis. In Experiment 2, they chose between ordered and unordered temporal sequences in a simpler choice task. Across the preschool years, children showed increasing use of spatial structure to represent time, but the pattern varied across axes. In Experiment 1, responding in the conventionally coded direction appeared earlier on the vertical and horizontal axes than on the sagittal axis. In Experiment 2, children's selection of ordered chronological sequences increased with age and was already detectable in the youngest group, although ordered-sequence choice remained relatively weaker on the sagittal axis. These findings suggest that early mental timeline development involves not only growing sensitivity to ordered temporal structure, but also the gradual coordination of temporal order with spatial direction through axis-specific linguistic, cultural, embodied, and task-related factors.

Indexed as

Child DevelopmentLanguageLanguage DevelopmentSpace PerceptionTime PerceptionChild, PreschoolFemaleHumansMaleAxis-specific developmentMandarin-speaking childrenMental timelineSagittal axisTemporal-spatial mapping

Identifiers

PMID42690494

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.