How to Predict the Future

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In psychology, people test their implicit associations by figuring out how long it takes them to do something. For English speakers, for example, it doesn't matter if I put the earlier key buffer below or above - they don't have a strong association that goes either way. Mandarin speakers, on the other hand, are faster if it's above than if it's below. And so that tells us that there is this implicit association that they have an expectation that those things are associated,. That they have to override when I do it the wrong way for them. If there's one thing that human beings aren't great at, it's predicting the future. Be prepared for anything by getting the best price

What direction does time point in? None, really, although some people might subconsciously put the past on the left and the future on the right, or the past behind themselves and the future in front, or many other possible orientations. What feels natural to you depends in large degree on the native language you speak, and how it talks about time. This is a clue to a more general phenomenon, how language shapes the way we think. Lera Boroditsky is one of the world’s experts on this phenomenon. She uses how different languages construe time and space (as well as other things) to help tease out the way our brains make sense of the world.

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Lera Boroditsky received her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Stanford University. She is currently associate professor of cognitive science at UC San Diego. She serves as Editor in Chief of the journal Frontiers in Cultural Psychology. She has been named one of 25 Visionaries changing the world by the Utne Reader, and is also a Searle Scholar, a McDonnell scholar, recipient of an NSF Career award, and an APA Distinguished Scientist lecturer.

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