[zaatar]

At first glance, his is too naive a conclusion. This isn't simply language-specific, it is further locale-specific in addition to simply the language, here's why:

Ahorita in Spanish (USA) means something else from Spanish (Nicaragua) for example. If a Greyhound bus driver were to use that word to indicate the bus is departing "Ahorita", I would assume that to mean the next 10-15 minutes whereas in Nicaragua, I would have no idea if it means 10 minutes, 30 minutes or even 60 minutes, so my follow-up question would be, "Do you mean 15 minutes or less?" To me, this is more a cultural thing, not a linguistic thing since in fact the language in use is the same, i.e. Spanish. As another example, "later" (EN-US) is not the same as in EN-IN.

Or maybe I'm missing the point of the research entirely ...

[pacofvf]

Funny, in Mexico we use a lot "Ahorita" too, which it's just the diminutive for "Ahora" ("Right Now" in English). The word is very ambiguous here, it can mean "Right now" or "In a few minutes/hours/days" or if used sarcastically "Never".

Edit: ohh my gosh I just remembered another case where it's used for past events:

- Perdí mis llaves (I lost my keys)

- ¿Cuándo? (When?)

- Ahorita (Just a few seconds/minutes ago)

[glibgil]

To be fair, "just" is diminutive in English and the answer in English is "just now". Fairly literal translation

[jnamaya]

For me the word "ahorita" has always meant "right now" not hours, minutes, right now..in a few seconds or so.

[betenoire]

- Ahorita (just now)

Same in english, no?

[tyingq]

Maybe "in a second" or "in a minute", which is almost never a second, or minute, respectively.

Or "shortly". Heard that one a lot. We'll be departing shortly. Which could be 2 minutes or 15 minutes, or something in between.

[acchow]

I don't think "just now" is used to mean the future (in a few minutes, or hours, or days).

[rosser]

No, you're talking about dialects. Both instances being Spanish-speaking, they're (according to this research) going to think of "how much time something takes" in a volumetric fashion, whereas English speakers tend to think of that more linearly.

The research suggests that the language you're using in a given context may control how you see that notion, in that context.