The effect of learning English as a foreign language on the temporal and spatial perception of Persian learners

The findings of the current research on language and thought provide supporting evidence for the idea that language can have a profound effect on thought. In two studies, the authors examined the effect of learning English as a foreign language on the temporal and spatial perception of Persian learners. In the first study, 99 participants and in the second study 92 participants were recruited. The participants were assigned to three groups of monolinguals, low level bilinguals and high level bilinguals based on their performance on the Oxford Quick Placement Test (QPT). Drawing on the assumptions of Construal Level Theory (CLT, Trope & Liberman, 2003), we primed global processing in participants through Navon's task (1977). Having completed the task, participants were required to estimate temporal and spatial distances in a number of situations. The results of the studies suggest that learning a foreign language can have an impact on the temporal and spatial cognition of language learners.