Embodied attention shapes temporal cognition.

Humans rely on spatial representations to process both temporal duration and mentally project themselves across time. Yet, it remains unclear whether this spatial-temporal mapping depends on embodied mechanisms or on abstract attentional codes. We investigated whether embodied cues (gaze direction) versus abstract cues optokinetic stimulation (OKS) modulate Mental Time Travel (MTT) and age judgement. Gaze direction induced direction-specific effects in both tasks: in MTT leftward gaze enhanced the perceived likelihood of past events, while rightward gaze enhanced judgements for future events; in the Age Judgement task leftward cues yielded younger estimates and rightward cues older estimates. Conversely, non-embodied OKS biased Age Judgements but induced no direction-specific effects in the MTT task. Overall, these dissociations suggest that embodied cues play a specific role in modulating temporal projection in MTT, whereas non-embodied attentional cues are sufficient to bias age-related temporal estimates. These findings suggest that temporal projection during MTT relies more strongly on embodied perceptual mechanisms, whereas judgements of longer temporal durations can be shaped by domain-general attentional processes.