Article published In: Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 12:1 (2025) ► pp.130–158
Bitter Monday and sweet Friday — The bidirectional relationship between taste and time
Published online: 2 June 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.22015.qin
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.22015.qin
Abstract
The conceptualization of time is based on the physical experience in space (Evans, V. (2004). The
structure of time: Language, meaning and temporal
cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Linguistically and psychologically, time is represented in two deictic spacetime metaphors: the
ego-moving metaphor and the time-moving metaphor (Clark, H. H. (1973). Space,
time, semantics and the child. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive
development and the acquisition of
language (pp. 27–63). New York: Academic Press. ). In the
current research, two studies were conducted to investigate a novel relationship between taste and time. In Study 1, participants
drank honey water and black coffee separately before interpreting a temporally ambiguous question. The results showed that whereas
sweet taste tilted participants toward the ego-moving perspective in disambiguation, bitter taste slanted participants toward the time-moving perspective.
To find out whether the influence of taste on time could be reversed, Study 2 primed participants with the ego-moving- or the
time-moving-framed contextual statements before asking them to gauge the sweetness of honey water and the bitterness of black
coffee independently. It was observed that in contrast to the ego-moving prime that prompted higher sweetness scores, the contrary
prime begot higher bitterness ratings. Across the two studies, emotion was shown to correlate with taste and time perspective.
Taken together, our findings buttress the embodied cognition theory by furnishing preliminary evidence that taste can affect and
be affected by time. Implications for the interplay between sensation, emotion, culture, and temporal cognition are discussed.
Keywords: spacetime metaphors, taste, emotion, embodied cognition, culture
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1The influence of emotion on time
- 1.2The influence of taste on emotion
- 1.3The influence of time on emotion
- 1.4The influence of emotion on taste
- 2.The present studies
- 2.1Study 1
- 2.1.1Participants
- 2.1.2Materials and procedure
- 2.1.3Results
- 2.2Study 2
- 2.2.1Participants
- 2.2.2Materials and procedure
- 2.2.3Results
- 2.1Study 1
- 3.General discussion
- 3.1Overview
- 3.2Discussion
- 3.2.1Taste-time bidirectionality from the perspective of embodied cognition
- 3.2.2Sweet-ego-moving perspective association from the perspective of emotion-related motivation
- 3.2.3Bitter-time-moving perspective association from the perspective of emotion-related agency
- 3.2.4Taste-time bidirectionality from the perspective of emotion-related mediation
- 3.3Implications
- 3.3.1Implications for embodied cognition
- 3.3.2Implications for the emotion-time association
- 3.3.3Implications for the taste-emotion-time link
- 3.3.4Implications for the linguacultural generalizability of the taste-time association
- 4.Conclusion
References
References (99)
Avery, J. A., Liu, A. G., Carrington, M., & Martin, A. (2022). Taste
metaphors ground emotion concepts through the shared attribute of valence. Frontiers in
Psychology, 131, 1–9.
Banaruee, H., Khoshsima, H., Zare-Behtash, E., & Yarahmadzehi, N. (2019). Reasons
behind using metaphor: A cognitive perspective on metaphoric
Language. NeuroQuantology, 17(3), 108–113.
Barbosa Escobar, F., Velasco, C., Motoki, K., Byrne, D. V., & Wang, Q. J. (2021). The
temperature of emotions. PLoS
ONE, 16(6), e0252408.
Bartlett, J. J., & Ruangjaroon, S. (2022). A
war of words: Dissecting the foundational claims of
CMT. Axiomathes, 321, 435–451.
Bender, A., & Beller, S. (2014). Mapping
spatial frames of reference onto time: A review of theoretical accounts and empirical
findings. Cognition, 132(3), 342–382.
Bender, A., Beller, S., & Bennardo, G. (2010). Temporal
frames of reference: Conceptual analysis and empirical evidence from German, English, Mandarin Chinese, and
Tongan. Journal of Cognition and
Culture, 10(3–4), 283–307.
Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric
structuring: Understanding time through spatial
metaphors. Cognition, 75(1), 1–28.
Boroditsky, L., & Ramscar, M. (2002). The
roles of body and mind in abstract thought. Psychological
Science, 13(2), 185–189.
Bredie, W. L. P., Tan, H. S. G., & Wendin, K. (2014). A
comparative study on facially expressed emotions in response to basic tastes. Chemsensory
Perception, 71, 1–9.
Chan, K. Q., Tong, E. M. W., Tan, D. H., & Koh, A. H. Q. (2013). What
do love and jealousy taste
like?. Emotion, 13(6), 1142–1149.
Chapman, H. A., Kim, D. A., Susskind, J. M., & Anderson, A. K. (2009). In
bad taste: Evidence for the oral origins of moral
disgust. Science, 323(5918), 1222–1226.
Chen, M., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Consequences
of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid the
stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 25(2), 215–224.
Clark, H. H. (1973). Space,
time, semantics and the child. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive
development and the acquisition of
language (pp. 27–63). New York: Academic Press.
Crist, C. A., Duncan, S. E., Arnade, E. A., Leitch, K. A., O’Keefe, S. F., & Gallagher, D. L. (2018). Automated
facial expression analysis for emotional responsivity using an aqueous bitter model. Food
Quality and
Preference, 681, 349–359.
Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous
factors in judicial decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 108(17), 6889–6892.
Del Maschio, N., Fedeli, D., Garofalo, G., & Buccino, G. (2021). Evidence
for the concreteness of abstract language: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Brain
Sciences, 12(1), 32.
Ding, Y., Ji, T.-T., & Chen, X. (2016). The
way evaluation tastes: Tasting as an embodied cue of evaluation. Current
Psychology, 351, 309–315.
Duffy, S. E. (2014). The
role of cultural artifacts in the interpretation of metaphorical expressions about
time. Metaphor and
Symbol, 29(2): 94–112.
Duffy, S. E., & Feist, M. I. (2014). Individual
differences in the interpretation of ambiguous statements about time. Cognitive
Linguistics, 25(1), 29–54.
Duffy, S. E., Feist, M. I., & McCarthy, S. (2014). Moving
through time: The role of personality in three real-life contexts. Cognitive
Science, 38(8), 1662–1674.
Duffy, S. E., & Evans, V. (2016). The
top trumps of time: Factors motivating the resolution of temporal ambiguity. Language and
Cognition, 9(2), 293–315.
Duffy, S. E., & Feist, M. I. (2017). Power
in time: The influence of power posing on metaphoric perspectives on time. Language and
Cognition, 9(4), 637–647.
Elvevåg, B., Helsen, K., De Hert, M., Sweers, K., & Storms, G. (2011). Metaphor
interpretation and use: A window into semantics in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia
Research, 1331, 205–211.
Eskine, K. J., Kacinik, N. A., & Prinz, J. J. (2011). A
bad taste in the mouth: Gustatory disgust influences moral judgment. Psychological
Science, 22(3), 295–299.
Eskine, K. J., Kacinik, N. A., & Webster, G. D. (2012). The
bitter truth about morality: Virtue, not vice, makes a bland beverage taste nice. PLoS
ONE, 7(7), e41159.
Evans, V. (2004). The
structure of time: Language, meaning and temporal
cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Garg, N., & Lerner, J. S. (2013). Sadness
and consumption. Journal of Consumer
Psychology, 23(1), 106–113.
Gayler, T., & Sas, C. (2017). An
exploration of taste-emotion mappings from the perspective of food design
practitioners. In MHFI 2017: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCHI
International Workshop on Multisensory Approaches to Human-Food
Interaction (pp. 23–28). New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
Gayler, T., Sas, C., & Kalnikaitė, V. (2019). Taste
your emotions: An exploration of the relationship between taste and emotional experience for
HCI. In DIS’19: Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive
Systems
Conference (pp. 1279–1291). New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
Gilead, M., Gal, O., Polak, M., & Cholow, Y. (2015). The
role of nature and nurture in conceptual metaphors: The case of gustatory priming. Social
Psychology, 46(3), 167–173.
Greimel, E., Macht, M., Krumhuber, E., & Ellgring, H. (2006). Facial
and affective reactions to tastes and their modulation by sadness and joy. Physiology &
Behavior, 89(2), 261–269.
Harmon-Jones, E. (2007). Asymmetrical
frontal cortical activity, affective valence, and motivational
direction. In E. Harmon-Jones & P. Winkielman (Eds.), Social
neuroscience: Integrating biological and psychological explanations of social
behavior (pp. 137–156). New York: The Guilford Press.
Hauser, D. J., Carter, M. S., & Meier, B. P. (2009). Mellow
Monday and furious Friday: The approach-related link between anger and time
representation. Cognition and
Emotion, 23(6), 1166–1180.
Heath, T. P., Melichar, J. K., Nutt, D. J., & Donaldson, L. F. (2006). Human
taste thresholds are modulated by serotonin and noradrenaline. The Journal of
Neuroscience, 26(49): 12664–12671.
Kaneko, D., Brouwer, A., Hogervorst, M., Toet, A., Kallen, V., & van Erp, J. B. F. (2020). Emotional
state during tasting affects emotional experience differently and robustly for novel and familiar
foods. Frontiers in
Psychology, 111, 558172.
Kashima, H., & Hayashi, N. (2011). Basic
taste stimuli elicit unique responses in facial skin blood flow. PLoS
ONE, 6(12): e28236.
Khatin-Zadeh, O., Eskandari, Z., Vahdat, S., & Banaruee, H. (2019). Why
are motions effective in describing emotions. Polish Psychological
Bulletin, 50(2), 119–124.
Kranjec, A., & Chatterjee, A. (2010). Are
temporal concepts embodied? A challenge for cognitive neuroscience. Frontiers in
Psychology, 11, 240.
Krieglmeyer, R., Deutsch, R., De Houwer, J., & De Raedt, R. (2010). Being
moved: Valence activates approach-avoidance behavior independently of evaluation and approach-avoidance
intentions. Psychological
Science, 21(4), 607–613.
Lai, V. T. & Boroditsky, L. (2013). The
immediate and chronic influence of spatio-temporal metaphors on the mental representations of time in English, Mandarin, and
Mandarin-English speakers. Frontiers in
Psychology, 41 1421.
Lakoff, G. (2012). Explaining
embodied cognition results. Topics in Cognitive
Science, 4(4), 773–785.
(1999). Philosophy
in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Lang, P. J., & Bradley, M. M. (2013). Appetitive
and defensive motivation: Goal-directed or goal-determined?. Emotion
Review, 5(3), 230–234.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997). International
affective picture system (IAPS): Technical manual and affective ratings. NIMH Center for the
Study of Emotion and
Attention, Gainesville, 39–58.
Lee, A., & Ji, L.-J. (2014). Moving
away from a bad past and toward a good future: Feelings influence the metaphorical understanding of
time. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General, 143(1), 21–26. [URL].
Lee, S. W. S., & Schwarz, N. (2012). Bidirectionality,
mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects: The embodiment of social suspicion and fishy
smells. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 103(5): 737–749.
Lerner, J. S., Li, Y., & Weber, E. U. (2013). The
financial costs of sadness. Psychological
Science, 24(1), 72–79.
Lerner, J. S., Small, D. A., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Heart
strings and purse strings: Carryover effects of emotions on economic decisions. Psychological
Science, 15(5), 337–341.
Li, H. (2020). Will
it really happen? Disambiguating of the hypothetical and real “next wednesday’s meeting” question in Mandarin
speakers. Lingua, 2371, 102806.
Li, H., & Cao, Y. (2018). 时间焦点对前后方向上内隐时空映射的影响——来自汉族和羌族的证据[The influence of temporal
focus on implicit space-time mappings on the front-back axis: Evidence from Han and Qiang
Chinese]. Acta Psychologica
Sinica, 50(10), 1083–1093.
Liang, P., Jiang, J., Chen, J., & Wei, L. (2021). Affective
face processing modified by different tastes. Frontiers in
Psychology, 121, 644704.
Loermans, A. C., & Milfont, T. L. (2018). Time
after time: A short-term longitudinal examination of the ego- and time-moving
representations. Journal of Research in
Personality, 741, 1–5.
Loermans, A. C., de Koning, B., & Krabbendam, L. (2019). Agency
and time representation in English and Dutch speakers. Journal of Language and Social
Psychology, 38(3): 353–375.
Margolies, S. O., & Crawford, L. E. (2008). Event
valance and spatial metaphors of time. Cognition and
Emotion, 22(7), 1401–1414.
Marmolejo-Ramos, F., Correa, J. C., Sakarkar, G., Ngo, G., Ruiz-Fernández, S., Butcher, N., & Yamada, Y. (2017). Placing
joy, surprise and sadness in space: A cross-linguistic study. Psychological
Research, 811, 750–763.
Matlock, T., Holmes, K. J., Srinivasan, M., & Ramscar, M. (2011). Even
abstract motion influences the understanding of time. Metaphor and
Symbol, 26(4), 260–271.
Matlock, T., Ramscar, M., & Boroditsky, L. (2005). On
the experiential link between spatial and temporal language. Cognitive
Science, 29(4), 655–664.
McGlone, M. S., & Harding, J. L. (1998). Back
(or forward?) to the future: The role of perspective in temporal language
comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 24(5), 1211–1223. [URL].
McGlone, M. S., & Pfiester, R. A. (2009). Does
time fly when you’re having fun, or do you?: Affect, agency, and embodiment in temporal
communication. Journal of Language and Social
Psychology, 28(1), 3–31.
Mihafu, F. D., Issa, J. Y., & Kamiyango, M. W. (2020). Implication
of sensory evaluation and quality assessment in food product development: A review. Current
Research in Nutrition and Food
Science, 8(3): 690–702.
Moll, J., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Moll, F. T., Ignácio, F. A., Bramati, I. E., Caparelli-Dáquer, E. M., & Eslinger, P. J. (2005). The
moral affiliations of disgust: A functional MRI study. Cognitive and Behavioral
Neurology, 18(1), 68–78.
Moseley, R., Carota, F., Hauk, O., Mohr, B., & Pulvermüller, F. (2012). A
role for the motor system in binding abstract emotional meaning. Cerebral
Cortex, 22(7), 1634–1647.
Niedenthal, P. M., Winkielman, P., Mondillon, L., & Vermeulen, N. (2009). Embodiment
of emotion concepts. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 96(6): 1120–1136.
Noel, C., & Dando, R. (2015). The
effect of emotional state on taste
perception. Appetite, 95(1), 89–95.
Ostarek, M., & Huettig, F. (2019). Six
challenges for embodiment research. Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 28(6): 593–599.
Ostarek, M., & Bottini, R. (2021). Towards
strong inference in research on embodiment — Possibilities and limitations of causal
paradigms. Journal of
Cognition, 4(1), 5.
Payne, T., Kronenbuerger, M., & Wong, G. Gustatory
Testing. (2022). In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure
Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022. Accessed on 2022 Jan 24. [URL]
Poggi, I., & D’Errico, F. (2010). The
mental ingredients of bitterness. Journal on Multimodal User
Interfaces, 31, 79–86.
Ren, D., Tan, K., Arriaga, X. B., & Chan, K. Q. (2015). Sweet
love: The effects of sweet taste experience on romantic perceptions. Journal of Social and
Personal
Relationships, 32(7), 905–921.
Richmond, J., Wilson, J. C., & Zinken, J. (2012). A
feeling for the future: How does agency in time metaphors relate to feelings?. European Journal
of Social
Psychology, 42(7), 813–823.
Robin, O., Rousmans, S., Dittmar, A., & Vernet-Maury, E. (2003). Gender
influence on emotional responses to primary tastes. Physiology &
behavior, 78(3), 385–393.
Rothe-Wulf, A., Beller, S., & Bender, A. (2015). Temporal
frames of reference in three Germanic languages: Individual consistency, interindividual consensus, and cross-linguistic
variability. Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 68(5), 917–939.
Rousmans, S., Robin, O., Dittmar, A., & Vernet-Maury, E. (2000). Automatic
nervous system responses associated with primary tastes. Chemical
Senses, 25(6), 709–718.
Rucker, D. D., & Petty, R. E. (2004). Emotion
specificity and consumer behavior: Anger, sadness, and preference for activity. Motivation and
Emotion, 281, 3–21.
Ruscher, J. B. (2011). Moving
forward: The effect of spatiotemporal metaphors on perceptions about grief. Social
Psychology, 42(3), 225–230.
Russell, J. A. (2003). Core
affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological
Review, 110(1): 145–172.
Sagioglou, C., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014). Bitter
taste causes hostility. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 40(12): 1589–1597.
Schienle, A., Osmani, F., & Schlintl, C. (2020). Disgust
propensity and the bitter aftertaste response. Chemosensory
Perception, 141, 57–63.
Spence, C. (2022). What
is the link between personality and food behavior?. Current Research in Food
Science, 51: 19–27.
Spinelli, S. (2021). Emotions
elicited by foods. In H. L. Meiselman (Ed.), Emotion
measurement (2nd
edition) (pp. 707–730). Sawston: Woodhead Publishing.
Spinelli, S., & Jaeger, S. R. (2019). What
do we know about the sensory drivers of emotions in foods and beverages?. Current Opinion in
Food
Science, 271, 82–89.
Stocker, K., & Hartmann, M. (2019). Next
Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward two days. Swiss Journal of
Psychology, 78(1–2): 61–67.
van der Wal, R. C., & van Dillen, L. F. (2013). Leaving
a flat taste in your mouth: Task load reduces taste perception. Psychological
Science, 24(7), 1277–1284.
Vigliocco, G., Kousta, S., Della Rosa, P. A., Vinson, D. P., Tettamanti, M., Devlin, J. T., & Cappa, S. F. (2014). The
neural representation of abstract words: The role of emotion. Cerebral
Cortex, 24(7), 1767–1777.
Wang, L., Chen, Q., Chen, Y., & Zhong, R. (2019). The
effect of sweet taste on romantic semantic processing: An ERP study. Frontiers in
Psychology, 101,1573.
Wang, Q. J., & Spence, C. (2016). ‘Striking
a sour note’: Assessing the influence of consonant and dissonant music on taste
perception. Multisensory
Research, 29(1–3): 195–208.
Wang, Q. J., Wang, S., & Spence, C. (2016). “Turn
up the taste”: Assessing the role of taste intensity and emotion in mediating crossmodal correspondences between basic tastes
and pitch. Chemical
Senses, 41(4): 345–356.
Wang, Q. J., & Spence, C. (2018). Assessing
the influence of music on wine perception among wine professionals. Food Science &
Nutrition, 61: 295–301.
Xu, J., Wan, F., & Schwarz, N. (2020). “That’s
bitter!”: Culture-specific effects of gustatory experience on judgments of fairness and
advancement. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General.
Xu, T., Liu, M., & Wang, X. (2022). How
humor is experienced: An embodied metaphor account. Current
Psychology, 1–13.
Zhang, X., Li, Y., Chao, X., & Li, Y. (2022). Sourness
impacts envy and jealousy in Chinese culture. Psychological
Research, 891, 96–107.
Zheng, W., Liu, Y., Liu, C., Chen, Y.-H., Cui, Q., & Fu, X. (2019). The
influence of event valence and emotional states on the metaphorical comprehension of
time. Frontiers in
Psychology, 101, 410.
