How Strongly Linked Are Mental Time and Space along the Left-Right Axis?

Different lines of research suggest that our mental representations of time and space are linked, though the strength of this linkage has only recently been addressed for the front-back mental timeline (Eikmeier, Schröter, Maienborn, Alex-Ruf, & Ulrich, 2013). The present study extends this investigation to the left-right mental timeline. In contrast to what was found in the cited previous study, the obtained space-time congruency effects were smaller than benchmark stimulus-response congruency effects in control conditions. This pattern of results suggests that the representations of time and space are less strongly linked for the left-right axis than for the back-front axis.