AN EVALUATION OF NOW (JAPANESE IMA) IN TH E PROCESS OF COGNITION AND SOLUTION OF CONTRADICTORY SITUATIONS

This study examines the relationship between the process of cognition and solution in contradictory situations and evaluation of the span co mprehended by ''now'' (Japanese ima) in it. Eighty-eight subjects were asked to express the span of ''now'' in each of 24 contradictory situ ations, selected for and graded according to degree of both contradict oriness and solvability. The subjects expressed their evaluation on a bi-directional cline, comprising 21 time categories: in this cline, '' now'' is positioned in the center, and the categories of second, minut e, hour, day, week, year, generation, century, and infinity to both th e left for the past and the right for the future. Three coordinates em erged from the data, applying Dual Scaling. The first indicated that f uture-oriented solutions in contradictory situations generate wider sp ans of ''now'' than did past ones, the second that negative solutions to contradictions generate a less realistic interrelation between its self and his outside world than did positive ones, and the third that the cognitive process and that by which contradictory situations are s olved contain a third dimension, different from both a past-future dim ension and a positive-negative dimension.