Embodiment of Abstract Concepts: Good and Bad in Right- and Left-Handers

Autor/in	Casasanto, Daniel
Titel	Embodiment of Abstract Concepts: Good and Bad in Right- and Left-Handers
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138 (2009) 3, S.351-367 (17 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0096-3445
DOI	10.1037/a0015854
Schlagwörter	Handedness; Cognitive Processes; Physical Environment; Hypothesis Testing; Psychological Patterns; Intelligence; Cognitive Mapping; Spatial Ability; Comparative Analysis; Figurative Language; Abstract Reasoning; Experimental Psychology; Undergraduate Students + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Linkshändigkeit; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Natürliche Umwelt; Hypothesenprüfung; Hypothesentest; Intelligenz; Klugheit; Räumliches Vorstellungsvermögen; Abstraktes Denken; Denken; Experimentelle Psychologie
Abstract	Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the "body-specificity hypothesis," people who interact with their physical environments in systematically different ways should form correspondingly different mental representations. In a test of this hypothesis, 5 experiments investigated links between handedness and the mental representation of abstract concepts with positive or negative valence (e.g., honesty, sadness, intelligence). Mappings from spatial location to emotional valence differed between right- and left-handed participants. Right-handers tended to associate rightward space with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas, but left-handers showed the opposite pattern, associating rightward space with negative ideas and leftward with positive ideas. These contrasting mental metaphors for valence cannot be attributed to linguistic experience, because idioms in English associate "good" with "right" but not with "left." Rather, right- and left-handers implicitly associated positive valence more strongly with the side of space on which they could act more fluently with their dominant hands. These results support the body-specificity hypothesis and provide evidence for the perceptuomotor basis of even the most abstract ideas. (Contains 3 figures and 4 footnotes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10