No evidence for the influence of head-heart conceptual metaphor on moral decision making and personality.

In English, head is associated with rationality and logic, whereas heart is related to feeling and emotionality. In Chinese, these head- and heart-related metaphors also exist. Could these head- and heart-related conceptual metaphors influence people's moral decision-making and personality? This seems so based on the previous findings that (a) simply pointing an index finger to heart (versus head) position caused participants to produce more emotional responses in a moral decision task, and (b) participants who believed themselves to be heart locators, relative to those who regarded themselves as head locators, scored higher in affect intensity, femininity, and intimacy related activities. The current study attempted to replicate these findings, following the same design and procedure of previous work, with Chinese participants from Hong Kong and Chinese mainland. In Experiments 1a and 1b, 203 participants performed the moral decision task on dilemmas with their index fingers pointing to head or heart. In Experiments 2a and 2b, 304 participants completed the scales of self-location, affective intensity, femininity, and intimacy related activities. In these high-powered experiments, we failed to replicate the findings of previous work. Bayesian analyses further showed that no head- and heart-related conceptual metaphor effect was likely to occur. Potential reasons for our inconsistent results with those of previous studies and the implications of our current findings were discussed.

Heads of Worry, Hearts of Joy: Daily Diary Investigations of Self-Location and Well-Being.

When people are asked to locate the self, they frequently choose the head and heart regions of the body. These bodily regions, in turn, are linked to an extensive set of metaphors, including those that conceptualize the heart as the locus of authenticity, love, and passion. Based on such considerations as well as frameworks within the self and well-being literatures, four samples of participants in three studies (total N = 527) were asked whether, on particular days, they perceived themselves to be located in their head regions of their bodies or their heart regions. When the self was perceived to be in the heart to a greater extent, participants reported higher levels of affective and eudaimonic well-being, as mediated by processes related to reward perception (Study 1), savoring (Study 2), and social activity (Study 3). In terms of daily experiences, the heart-located self is a happier self.

Framing Slogans for Responsible Gambling Campaigns: A Tale of Two Models.

This study investigates the persuasive mechanism of slogans employed in responsible gambling campaigns. We analyse slogans from official posters in the U.S., Singapore, and Macau, focusing on two domains. First, the Theory of Planned Behaviour is applied to examine the intention to gamble expressed in the slogans to reveal how gambling is positioned in social contexts. Second, two framing devices-i.e., conceptual metaphors and the frame of gains/losses-are examined to understand how these framing devices reinforce the persuasive message while interacting with each other. Two models of persuasion emerge from our data-one encouraged 'grounded games' for enjoyment, while the other discouraged gambling due to its potentially 'harmful' consequences. We advocate for a gestalt view on the theoretical constructs that contribute to the overall effectiveness of persuasive messaging. These constructs should be integrated into an analytical framework, with particular attention given to the framing effect of conceptual metaphors and the gain/loss frame, and their interplay.

Conceptual metaphors and image construction of China in the space probe reports of China Daily: a social cognitive approach.

The success of Shenzhou XIII and Chang'e-5 mission became a milestone in China's aerospace history and represented China's latest attempt to contribute to international space industry, which greatly promoted the China's national image. However, rare studies have examined the image construction in aerospace field. Thus, this study takes conceptual metaphors as the guiding theory and studies conceptual metaphors in China Daily news release on Chang'e-5 and Shenzhou XIII from 2008 to 2021. It focuses on the types of metaphors used, the semantic features of the metaphors, and the characteristics of Chinese images in aerospace field. It is found that China Daily widely uses conceptual metaphors in its news release on space probe, which mainly includes 11 conceptual metaphor categories such as "endeavor," "great significance," "time" and "journey," and 20 types of conceptual metaphor subcategories, all of which are working together to construct the image of China in aerospace industry, which is characterized with the following features: a dream-building action with lofty goals, an enterprising action which represents the prosperity and progress of China, an exploratory action that is constantly forging ahead and pursuing, a leading action that opens a new chapter and leads a new journey, a braving action which dares to be the first to live in the space, and an achieving action to create a community with a shared future for mankind.

Three levels of framing.

A sociologist and a linguist, unaware of each other's work, each assigned a technical meaning to the term frame around 1970, based on separate usages of the word frame from the 1950s. Each researcher instigated a theory of frame analysis. Over the following decades, the two approaches to framing became intertwined as followers of both Goffman and Fillmore studied metaphoric framing, examined factors affecting the communication of frames, and became particularly interested in politics and the mass media. Years later, many theorists complain about the fragmented field of frame studies. The paper suggests that some of the fragmentation can be resolved by recognizing the dual origins of framing studies, and classifying instances of framing in either the Goffman or the Fillmore tradition as occurring at the level of language, thought, or communication. These three levels are termed semantic framing, cognitive framing, and communicative framing. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Cognitive Linguistics > Linguistic Theory Computer Science and Robotics > Natural Language Processing.

Close to the same: Similarity influences remembered distance between stimuli.

Six preregistered studies show that the degree of similarity of two objects biases people's spatial memory of these objects. When objects are high in similarity, people remember having seen them closer together in space than when they are low in similarity. All six studies provide correlational evidence, showing that the more similar participants rated two stimuli, the smaller they remembered the distance between them. This was true for both conceptual and perceptual similarity (Study 3). Furthermore, Studies 2, 4A, and 4B provide evidence of causality by manipulating similarity experimentally. Replicating the correlational findings, highly similar stimuli were remembered as closer together than stimuli low in similarity. This pattern was found across different stimulus categories and similarity dimensions. Overall, these findings show that the similarity of stimuli influences perceivers' reconstruction of their spatial locations.

Bibliometric assessment of world scholars' international publications related to conceptual metaphor.

Research on metaphor has gained increasing attention of world's scholars since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson's collaborated book Metaphors We Live By in 1980. The present study comprises a pioneering review of publications on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). It aimed to use the CiteSpace software to provide a clear overview of international research in relation to CMT. In total, 4,458 bibliometric recordings ranging from 1980 to 2022 were collected from the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection. The descriptive analysis presents the trend of annual publications, the top 10 most prolific journals and the top 10 most productive authors. A document co-citation analysis was conducted via CiteSpace to navigate the key documents in this field. A visualization of keywords and its cluster analysis were conducted to show the research fields and dominant topics. The top 5 keywords with high frequency were language, comprehension, conceptual metaphor, discourse, and figurative language. The most prominent 5 clusters are labeled as right hemisphere, self, time, teacher education, and corpus linguistics. The present review through CiteSpace flags the need for more investigations of CMT from more aspects or interdisciplinary studies, such as metaphor translation, metaphor in literature, metaphor and corpus linguistics, etc.

Ultimate Grounding of Abstract Concepts: A Graded Account.

ion, one of the hallmarks of human cognition, continues to be the topic of a strong debate. The primary disagreement concerns whether or not abstract concepts can be accounted for within the scope of embodied cognition. In this paper, we introduce the embodied approach to conceptual knowledge and distinguish between embodiment and grounding, where grounding is the general term for how concepts initially acquire their meaning. Referring to numerous pieces of empirical evidence, we emphasise that, ultimately, all concepts are acquired via interaction with the world via two main pathways: embodiment and social interaction. The first pathway is direct and primarily involves action/perception, interoception and emotions. The second pathway is indirect, being mediated by language in particular. Evidence from neuroscience, psychology and cognitive linguistics shows these pathways have different properties, roles in cognition and temporal profiles. Human development also places revealing constraints on how children develop the ability to reason more abstractly as they grow up. We recognize language as a crucial cognitive faculty with several roles enabling the acquisition of abstract concepts indirectly. Three detailed case studies on body-specificity hypothesis, abstract verbs and mathematics are used to argue that a compelling case has accumulated in favour of the ultimate grounding of abstract concepts in an agent's interaction with its world, primarily relying on the direct pathway. We consolidate the debate through multidisciplinary evidence for the idea that abstractness is a graded, rather than a binary property of concepts.

The Semantics of the Preposition " ala" in the Quran: A Conceptual Metaphor Perspective.

Traditional syntactic approaches do not offer a plausible explanation regarding the use of the Arabic preposition " ala" with abstract nouns or states. This article adopts a corpus-based approach to investigate the semantic classification of the preposition " ala" in the Quran from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Conceptual metaphor theory (hereafter CMT) was employed to find out conceptual metaphors (hereafter CM) in the data retrieved from the Quran with the help of search Quran software. CMT holds that human sensorimotor neural structures help store spatial relationships, which are then used to map the abstract concepts in language and thought, and that prepositions are the products of human sensorimotor neural structures. This paper found nine key CM themes behind the usage of prepositions in the data. Contact and support schemas were at the heart of the literal and metaphorical use of the spatial preposition " ala" in the Quran. However, it was also found that language generation and comprehension involve the role of multimodal perceptual schemas and linguistic knowledge rather than the unilinear process of one CM. This paper suggests further research into spatial relations across languages to explore the cross-cultural implications of image schemas.

Adding and subtracting by hand: Metaphorical representations of arithmetic in spontaneous co-speech gestures.

This study investigated the spontaneous co-speech gestures produced by speakers who were talking about the concepts of addition and subtraction in a television news setting. We performed a linguistic and co-speech gesture analysis of expressions related to the concepts of addition (N plus N, addition, add) and subtraction (N minus N, subtraction, subtract). First, we compared the linguistic frequency of these structures across several corpora. Second, we performed a multimodal gesture analysis, drawing data from a television news repository. We analyzed 423 co-speech gestures (169 for subtraction and 254 for addition) in terms of their axis (e.g., lateral, sagittal) and their direction (e.g., leftwards, away from their body). Third, we examined the semantic properties of the direct object that was added or subtracted. There were two main findings. First, low-frequency linguistic expressions were more likely to be accompanied by co-speech gestures. Second, most gestures about addition and subtraction were produced along the lateral or sagittal axes. When people spoke about addition, they tended to produce lateral, rightwards movements or movements away from the body. When people spoke about subtraction, they tended to produce lateral, leftwards movements or movements towards the body. This co-speech gesture data provides evidence that people activate two different metaphors for arithmetic in spontaneous behavior: arithmetic is motion along a path and arithmetic is collecting objects.

Conceptual metaphors influence memory automatically: Evidence from a divided attention false memory task.

Previous research has found that reading a list of ostensibly unrelated expressions based on the same underlying conceptual metaphor can evoke false recognition on a memory task for new expressions that use the same metaphor, the so-called conceptual metaphor false memory effect. We examined the automaticity of this effect by dividing participants' attention with a concurrent task. In Study 1, attention was manipulated while participants read the lists of expressions, whereas in Study 2, attention was manipulated both when they read the lists and when they were engaged in the later recognition memory test. Across both studies, the conceptual metaphor false memory effect was observed when conscious processing was limited by dividing attention. These data support the argument that conceptual metaphors are automatically activated when metaphorical expressions are read.

Metaphors we Lie by: our 'War' against COVID-19.

In this paper we discuss the influence of war as a metaphor in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. After an introduction on the traditional analysis of the war metaphor, we address the social consequences of using this metaphor, a topic that has been widely debated with regard to public communication in the context of COVID-19. We pay particular attention to a theory that many intellectuals have raised: the possibility that the use of the metaphor in this context is harmful to a democratic society because it may lead citizens to accept limited civil liberties and authoritarian policies. After presenting the extensive literature on the use of the war metaphor before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the final section of the paper, we analyse experimental evidence of the effects of this metaphor. In the conclusion, we hint at open questions and suggest that the current evidence does not support claims of direct liberticidal influence.

An Embodied Sonification Model for Sit-to-Stand Transfers.

Interactive sonification of biomechanical quantities is gaining relevance as a motor learning aid in movement rehabilitation, as well as a monitoring tool. However, existing gaps in sonification research (issues related to meaning, aesthetics, and clinical effects) have prevented its widespread recognition and adoption in such applications. The incorporation of embodied principles and musical structures in sonification design has gradually become popular, particularly in applications related to human movement. In this study, we propose a general sonification model for the sit-to-stand (STS) transfer, an important activity of daily living. The model contains a fixed component independent of the use-case, which represents the rising motion of the body as an ascending melody using the physical model of a flute. In addition, a flexible component concurrently sonifies STS features of clinical interest in a particular rehabilitative/monitoring situation. Here, we chose to represent shank angular jerk and movement stoppages (freezes), through perceptually salient pitch modulations and bell sounds. We outline the details of our technical implementation of the model. We evaluated the model by means of a listening test experiment with 25 healthy participants, who were asked to identify six normal and simulated impaired STS patterns from sonified versions containing various combinations of the constituent mappings of the model. Overall, we found that the participants were able to classify the patterns accurately (86.67 ± 14.69% correct responses with the full model, 71.56% overall), confidently (64.95 ± 16.52% self-reported rating), and in a timely manner (response time: 4.28 ± 1.52 s). The amount of sonified kinematic information significantly impacted classification accuracy. The six STS patterns were also classified with significantly different accuracy depending on their kinematic characteristics. Learning effects were seen in the form of increased accuracy and confidence with repeated exposure to the sound sequences. We found no significant accuracy differences based on the participants' level of music training. Overall, we see our model as a concrete conceptual and technical starting point for STS sonification design catering to rehabilitative and clinical monitoring applications.

Effects of color-emotion association on facial expression judgments.

Color and emotion are metaphorically associated in the human mind. This color-emotion association affects perceptual judgment. For example, stimuli representing colors can affect judgment of facial expressions. The present study examined whether colors associated with happiness (e.g., yellow) and sadness (e.g., blue and gray) facilitate judgments of the associated emotions in facial expressions. We also examined whether temporal proximity between color and facial stimuli interacts with any of these effects. Participants were presented with pictures of a happy or sad face against a yellow-, blue-, or gray-colored background and asked to judge whether the face represented happiness or sadness as quickly as possible. The face stimulus was presented simultaneously (Experiment 1) or preceded for one second by the colored background (Experiment 2). The analysis of response time showed that yellow facilitated happiness judgment, while neither blue nor gray facilitated sadness judgment. Moreover, the effect was found only when the face and color stimuli were presented simultaneously. The results imply that the association of sadness with blue and gray is weak and, consequently, does not affect emotional judgment. Our results also suggest that temporal proximity is critical for the effect of the color-emotion association (e.g., yellow-happiness) on emotional judgment.

Elucidating the influences of embodiment and conceptual metaphor on lexical and non-speech tone learning.

In the contexts of language learning and music processing, hand gestures conveying acoustic information visually influence perception of speech and non-speech sounds (Connell et al., 2013; Morett & Chang, 2015). Currently, it is unclear whether this effect is due to these gestures' use of the human body to highlight relevant features of language (embodiment) or the cross-modal mapping between the visual motion trajectories of these gestures and corresponding auditory features (conceptual metaphor). To address this question, we examined identification of the pitch contours of lexical tones and non-speech analogs learned with pitch gesture, comparable dot motion, or no motion. Critically, pitch gesture and dot motion were either congruent or incongruent with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that identification accuracy increased for tones learned with congruent pitch gesture and dot motion, whereas it remained stable or decreased for tones learned with incongruent pitch gesture and dot motion. These findings provide the first evidence that both embodied and non-embodied visual stimuli congruent with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch enhance lexical and non-speech tone learning. Thus, they illuminate the influences of conceptual metaphor and embodiment on lexical and non-speech auditory perception, providing insight into how they can be leveraged to enhance language learning and music processing.

Testing the body specificity hypothesis: A comparative study of the Persian language and the Persian Sign language.

The present study explores the role of language in establishing the lateral space-valence mappings in mind. According to the body specificity hypothesis, regardless of linguistic and cultural conventions, "goodness" in people's minds is associated with the body's dominant side. The current study explores the language's influence on conceptualizing spatial metaphors by comparing two right-handed groups with similar cultural experiences but different language patterns. We used a computer-based task to compare the conceptual mappings between the right/left sides of space and emotional valence in Persian speakers and Persian Sign language users. Our result showed that right-handed Persian speakers strongly relate positive emotions to the right side and negative emotions to the left. This result is predictable by the effects of both linguistic and bodily experiences that are consistent in this case. However, in the case of Persian Sign language users, the bodily and linguistic experiences disagreed. Our finding showed that Sign language participants disregarding their bodily experiences, followed their linguistic patterns.

Comprensión del tiempo a través del espacio: Un estudio de plasticidad inducida en niños con trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje / Time comprehension through space: A research study on induced plasticity in children with developmental language disorder

Objetivo: Evaluar si los niños con trastorno del desarrollo lingüístico de tipo mixto (TDL) comprenden el tiempo verbal por medio de la metáfora conceptual «tiempo es espacio» (futuro adelante, pasado atrás). Método: Se elaboró un experimento de plasticidad inducida que consistió en mover fichas de un recipiente a otro realizando un movimiento adelante o atrás, y luego realizar un juicio de coherencia semántica en oraciones en pasado y futuro. Resultados: El desempeño general de los niños con TDL fue inferior en comparación con los niños con desarrollo típico (DT), con menos aciertos en las oraciones en pasado que en futuro. La interacción entre los dominios conceptuales de la metáfora (dirección del movimiento y tiempo verbal) al medir el tiempo de respuesta evidenció un efecto de interferencia compatible con la metáfora en niños con TDL y con DT. Al medir el porcentaje de aciertos, los resultados arrojaron una interacción entre dirección, tiempo y grupo, que muestra un efecto de facilitación compatible con la metáfora en los niños con TDL y un efecto de interferencia en niños con DT. Todos los resultados dependieron de la covariable atención sostenida. Conclusiones: Esta investigación da cuenta de la relación que existe entre el dominio espacial del eje adelante-atrás y la comprensión del tiempo verbal en niños con TDL y niños con normodesarrollo lingüístico. Los resultados se explican por medio de la teoría de la metáfora conceptual y las teorías corpóreas, y son de relevancia para futuras investigaciones y nuevas propuestas de intervención en el TDL.(AU)

Objective: To assess whether children with mixed developmental language disorders (DLD) understand verb tense through the conceptual metaphor «time is space» (future ahead, past behind). Method: An induced plasticity experiment was used which comprised moving tokens from one container to another using a forward or backward movement, and then forming a judgement of semantic coherence in past and future sentences. Results: The overall performance of the children with DLD was lower compared to typically developing (TD) children, attaining fewer hits in past sentences than future sentences. The interaction between the conceptual domains of the metaphor (movement direction and verb tense) when measuring response time, showed an interference effect compatible with the metaphor in the DLD and the TD children. When measuring the hit rate, the results showed an interaction between direction, tense, and group, showing a facilitation effect compatible with the metaphor in the children with DLD and an interference effect in the TD children. All the results depended on sustained attention. Conclusions: This research study shows the relationship between the spatial dominance of the forward/backward axis and understanding of verb tense in children with DLD and children with normal language development. The results are explained through the theory of conceptual metaphor and corporeal theories and are relevant for future research and new proposals for intervention in DLD.(AU)

The Language of Pain: Is There a Relationship Between Metaphor Use and Adjustment to Chronic Pain?

OBJECTIVE: Metaphor, frequently used in chronic pain, can function as a communicative tool, facilitating understanding and empathy from others. Previous research has demonstrated that specific linguistic markers exist for areas such as pain catastrophizing, mood, as well as diagnostic categories. The current study sought to examine potential associations between the types of pain metaphors used and diagnostic category, disability, and mood. DESIGN: Online cross-sectional survey in Sydney, Australia. SUBJECTS: People with chronic pain (n = 247, age 19-78 years, M = 43.69). METHODS: The data collected included demographics, pain metaphors, the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS-21). Associations between metaphor source domains, obtained via Systematic Metaphor Analysis, and scores on the BPI, DASS-21, as well as diagnostic group were considered using binary logistic analysis. RESULTS: Use of different pain metaphors was not associated with pain intensity, however the extent to which pain interfered with daily life did have a relationship with use of metaphorical language. Preliminary support was found for an association between the use of certain pain metaphors and self-reported diagnostic categories, notably Endometriosis, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, and Neuropathic pain. CONCLUSIONS: There may be specific linguistic metaphorical markers to indicate pain interference and for particular diagnoses. Appreciation of pain metaphors has potential to facilitate communication and enhance understanding in interactions between clinicians and people with chronic pain.

Controlled or automatic? Influence of congruency proportion and stimulus-onset asynchrony on the brightness-valence and spatial-valence metaphoric congruency effects.

Whether a cognitive process is operated automatically or in a controlled manner has been a long-standing question in cognitive psychology. However, this issue has not been investigated in the activation of metaphoric association. A primed word valence judgement task is often used to test the activation of metaphoric association, in which participants first see a prime (bright/dark square or fixation point moving up or down from the centre of the screen) and then make a valence judgement to a target word. Metaphoric congruency effect occurs when participants make faster judgements to the target with valence being matched with the prime (good followed bright/top prime) than being mismatched with the prime (good followed dark/bottom prime). In the present two experiments, we manipulated prime-target stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) and proportion of metaphorically congruent trials (congruency proportion) to tease apart the effects of automatic and controlled activation of brightness-valence and spatial-valence metaphoric associations on word valence judgements. Results showed an overall effect of congruency proportion on brightness-valence and spatial-valence metaphoric congruency effect, which was independent of prime-target SOA. The effect was enhanced or reversed when congruency proportion was higher or lower than 0.5, respectively, suggesting that the activation of metaphoric association could be modulated by strategic control. The implications of these findings on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and semantic priming theories are discussed.

Obtaining help by standing higher: The mediating role of moral reputation.

Drawing on the social cognitive chain of being (SCCB) theory and heuristic perspective, the present study explored whether and how social targets' vertical spatial position influences the help the social targets can get from others. Study 1 demonstrated that individuals would be more likely to help social targets who were presented on a higher vertical spatial position than those who were presented on a lower vertical spatial position. In Study 2, an experimental-causal-chain design was adopted for further testing the mediating role of moral reputation between the social targets' vertical spatial position and the amount of help that the social targets obtain from others. Study 3 cross-validated this mediating process by a measurement-of-mediation design. Those three studies help us comprehend how helping behavior occurs from the characteristics of help recipients as well as extend the influence of vertical spatial metaphor of morality from cognitive connection to action-relevant outcomes.