Time is usually conceived of in terms of space: many natural languages refer to time according to a back-to-front axis. Indeed, whereas the past is usually conceived to be “behind us”, the future is considered to be “in front of us.” Despite temporal coding is pivotal for the development of autonoetic consciousness, little is known about the organization of autobiographical memories along this axis. Here we developed a spatial compatibility task (SCT) to test the organization of autobiographical memories along the sagittal plane, using spatiotemporal interference. Twenty-one participants were asked to recall both episodic and semantic autobiographical memories (EAM and SAM, respectively) to be used in the SCT. Then, during the SCT, they were asked to decide whether each event occurred before or after the event presented right before, using a response code that could be compatible with the back-to-front axis (future in front) or not (future at back). We found that performance was significantly worse during the non-compatible condition, especially for EAM. The results are discussed in light of the evidence for spatiotemporal encoding of episodic autobiographical memories, taking into account possible mechanisms explaining compatibility effects.

时间通常是根据空间来构想的：许多自然语言根据从后到前的轴来指代时间。事实上，过去通常被认为是“在我们身后”，而未来则被认为是“在我们面前”。尽管时间编码对于自主意识的发展至关重要，但人们对沿着这个轴的自传体记忆的组织知之甚少。在这里，我们开发了一个空间兼容性任务 (SCT)，以使用时空干扰来测试沿矢状面的自传体记忆的组织。21 名参与者被要求回忆要在 SCT 中使用的情景和语义自传体记忆（分别为 EAM 和 SAM）。然后，在 SCT 期间，他们被要求决定每个事件是发生在之前出现的事件之前还是之后，使用可以与从后到前轴（未来在前）或不兼容（未来在后）兼容的响应代码。我们发现在不兼容条件下性能明显变差，尤其是对于 EAM。根据情景自传体记忆的时空编码证据讨论结果，同时考虑解释相容性效应的可能机制。