The connotation of "old": evidence of an expanded present from movies

Abstract

We explore the concept of an expanded present by examining how individuals perceive the “age” of an event, product, or artefact in relation to their own age. We hypothesized that a certain age acts as a kind of tipping point for an “old” versus “new/recent/current” connotation. Events occurring before that age connote a halo of “oldness,” whereas events occurring after that age connote a halo of “recency.” We used movies as a case study and employed a response priming design, presenting movie posters from different decades (1960s to 2010s) as briefly presented primes, preceding target movie posters from the 1960s and 2010s, which had to be categorized as “old” or “new.” Participants were from four age cohorts (born in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s). Results supported the hypothesis, showing that individuals tend to spontaneously categorize movies released in their adolescence or later as “new/current” and earlier movies as “old.”