Chinese philosophic notion of the oneness of man and nature characterizes the object-centered apprehension of spatial and temporal relationship, prefers to define spatial and temporal direction by referring to temporal sequence’s internal structure. Consequently, the object-centered apprehension of spatial and temporal relationship underlies ground-preference cognitive style. Led by the philosophic notion of human is the measure of all things, which originated from ancient Greek, English is characteristic of centrality of the egocentric nature of spatial and temporal apprehension, which leads English speakers to perceive spatial and temporal relationship on the basis of ego’s/observer’s goal in metaphorical journey, conceptualizing forward/back by taking observer’s direction of facing the goal of metaphorical journey in future as spatial and temporal direction. In which ego’s/observer’s goal functions as figure in figure-preference cognitive style, unless traveler’s or observer’s direction is eclipsed by temporal sequence signified in context. In that case, forward/back have to be converted into Chinese sequence-oriented direction qian/hou, or in/out, resulting in deviation in spatial and temporal directions between qian/hou/nei/wai and forward/ back.