are abstract concepts structured via more concrete concepts

Are abstract concepts structured via more concrete concepts?

John L. Dennis

in collaboration with Arthur B. Markman

Research supported by NIDA grant R21 DA015211-01A1 to A. B. Markman

Roadmap

Concrete representations shape our thinking of abstract representations.

Concrete domain of space shapes our thinking of the abstract domain of time via a structured metaphor.

Agency as a possible confound with this metaphor.

Abstract representations of agency shapes our thinking of the abstract domain of time.


How do we represent the abstract concepts like?

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are needed to see this picture.

Love Justice Time

Metaphoric Representation View (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980)Abstract concepts are represented via a metaphor from more concrete concepts.

GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWNI’m feeling up.I’m feeling down.My spirits rose.My spirits sank.

Linguistic Evidence

Perceptual Symbol Systems (Barsalou, 1997Actions like predicates and recursion are done by perception.

Embodied Cognition (Clark, 2001; Prinz & Barsalou, 2000)Representations as context sensitive, embodied, and temporally based.

Metaphoric Structuring View (Boroditsky, 2000)Metaphors provide relational structure for abstract concepts, e.g., the ego-moving and time-moving metaphors.

Psychological Evidence

Ego & Time-Moving Metaphors

Ego-moving metaphorWe passed the deadline two days ago.

past deadline future

Ego & Time-Moving Metaphors

Ego-moving metaphorWe passed the deadline two days ago.


Time-moving metaphorThe deadline passed [us] two days ago.


Roadmap



Spatial Primes

Metaphoric Structuring View



Spatial Analog of Time-Moving Metaphor



Spatial Analog of Ego-Moving Metaphor

Boroditsky, 2000 Figure 3

Next Wednesday's meeting has been moved forward two days.

What day is the meeting now that it has been rescheduled?

Temporally Ambiguous Question

Wednesday Wednesday

Monday Friday Monday Friday


Wednesday

Monday Friday

Monday Friday






Wednesday

Monday Friday

Wednesday

Monday Friday





Roadmap





Ego-moving metaphor

past future

Relatively activeTime-moving metaphor

past future

Relatively passive




Relatively active



Relatively passive

Boroditsky, 2000 Figure 3

Spatial Analog of Ego-Moving Metaphor Spatial Analog of Time-Moving Metaphor


Roadmap





Agency

Agency vs. Passivity

Mary kissed Tom.

Mary = agent, cause of action Tom = patient, recipient of action

Interpersonal action verbs have an implicit causality (Fillmore, 1968)

Experiment Task 1 (prime)Unscramble either grammatical subject or grammatical object sentences using interpersonal action verbs.

Mary I under kissed the bridge

‘Agency’ primes ‘Passivity’ primes

Mary bridge me kissed the under

Task 2 (test)

Answer temporally ambiguous ‘next Wednesday’s meeting’ question.

Dennis & Markman, in prep

Predictions

Implicit representation of agency alters one’s thinking about time.

‘Agency’ primes will produce results consistent with the ego-moving metaphor.

‘Passivity’ primes will produce results consistent with the time-moving metaphor.



Results

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Control (No Prime) Agency ("I" GrammaticalSubject)

Passivity ("ME"Grammatical Object)

Condition

Proportion Selecting Friday

Ego-Moving(SelectingFriday)Time-Moving(SelectingMonday)

Conclusions

One’s implicit representation of agency altered one’s thinking about time.

‘Agency’ primes produced results consistent with the ego-moving metaphor.

‘Passivity’ primes produced results consistent with the time-moving metaphor.



Future Directions

One’s relative implicit agency cause one to systematically disambiguate a spatially ambiguous scene.

One’s relative implicit agency cause one to systematically disambiguate an agency ambiguous scene.

One’s implicit representation of approach/avoidance motivations changes how one thinks about time.


ThanksMatt McGlone, Serge Block, Matt Jones, Kyungil Kim, Lisa Narvaez,

Tatjiana Feinstein, Jeff Laux, Micah and Eric Taylor:For helpful discussions

Leland Lockart, Andrew Friedman, Patrick Brown, Brian Gurbach, Jason Lopez and Sonya Crocker:

For their heroic data collection efforts

Leora Orent: for managing the Similarity and Cognition Lab

Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science: for inviting Lera Boroditsky to give a lecture 3 years ago on this topic.

Nevin Pecorelli:for encouraging my research on time despite my persistent tardiness.

experiment 2 (pilot)

negative valence agent primes

task 1 (prime)unscramble grammatical subject sentences using solely negative valence interpersonal action verbs

i.e.,

Mary under bridge badgered the I.

task 2 (test)

answer temporally ambiguous ‘next wednesday’s meeting’ question

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i pos&neg iav i neg iav control

condition

% chosen

Time-Moving (Mon)Ego-Moving (Fri)

experiment 2

resultssignificant trend difference between the neg & pos agent vs. neg agent

Which of these widgets is ahead? (please circle one) COND

c ontr o lm e cond it ionI condit ion

Count

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1 6

1 4

1 2

1 0

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TYPE

m onday

fr iday

Spatially ambiguous

kyak 03.31.05 n=80 iv; n=31 cont

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kp1 kp2 kp3 kp4 kp5 kp6 kp7 kp8 kp9 kp10 kp11 kp12 kp13

photos

diff from control

i conditionme conditionLog. (i condition)Log. (me condition)

<0=passive>0=active

are abstract concepts structured via more concrete concepts

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