I brought it up at work to some of my co-workers hoping that they would all agree that a triangle is the only logical answer. Oh, how I was wrong. After trying to explain it to the first person the only response I got was confusion. So I got up and drew the diagram on the board.
"This is what I think of when I think of a month in relation to it's neighbors. The only way I can explain it is that the 3 points are the most important times for a kid growing up. Start of school, Christmas, and the end of school. End of school being the most important so it's skewed in that direction."
Upon turning around I was met with a furrowed eyebrow as if to say..."Yea, you freak." He said that my triangle made no sense and that he thought of time as a horizontal timeline. Something like so...Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
OK, fair enough. This was, after all, the answer that I expected to be runner up to my triangle. So maybe I should ask somebody for a second opinion. Later in the day I cornered another co-worker and forced them to explain their mental calendar. He looked at my triangle...then at the first guy's and said, "Ok, it's definitely not a triangle. It's more like a line," to which co-worker1 let out a mighty "HA!". But then co-worker2 added, "Only, vertical, not horizontal.
So now we have three different interpretations of the calendar. A triangle, a horizontal line, and a vertical line, like so:
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Co-worker #3 thinks of the calendar in a half-moon shape.
When I asked, "So what happens after December? Does it just start a new half moon?"
He replied, "Hmm, it's hard to explain. It joins up with another january I guess."
"Like a 3D shape maybe? Like a spiral?"
"Yea, actually. I never put much thought into it. It connect to another half spiral."
Great, so that's another one. Then I get home and decide to ask a few friends online. The first friend finds this all very amusing and says that her calendar is an X quadrant pinwheel with the months blurring at the change of the season, like so:
I then ask another friend and her response is that it's obviously a circle, but with January starting on the left:
So now I'm thoroughly confused. I can only assume that there's a field in psychology that studies the way people perceive non-tangible ideas, forming pictures in their heads to relate to them. I'm hoping that you can all share the way you picture the calendar and hopefully I'll be able to think of some other examples of this unknown (by me) phenomenon.
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Since I had yet to get a single repeat answer, I decided to ask a 3rd co-worker that was passing by. He came in and looked at all three answers and then started looking at an imaginary calendar about 2 feet in front of his face, tracing it with his finger. He made a motion to the 4 row 3 column calendar on the wall but then hesitated and grabbed a dry erase marker. What he drew was the strangest yet.
Co-worker #3 thinks of the calendar in a half-moon shape. When I asked, "So what happens after December? Does it just start a new half moon?"
He replied, "Hmm, it's hard to explain. It joins up with another january I guess."
"Like a 3D shape maybe? Like a spiral?"
"Yea, actually. I never put much thought into it. It connect to another half spiral."
Great, so that's another one. Then I get home and decide to ask a few friends online. The first friend finds this all very amusing and says that her calendar is an X quadrant pinwheel with the months blurring at the change of the season, like so:
I then ask another friend and her response is that it's obviously a circle, but with January starting on the left:
So now I'm thoroughly confused. I can only assume that there's a field in psychology that studies the way people perceive non-tangible ideas, forming pictures in their heads to relate to them. I'm hoping that you can all share the way you picture the calendar and hopefully I'll be able to think of some other examples of this unknown (by me) phenomenon.