Multimodal priming of abstract constructs
نویسنده
چکیده
constructs such as morality, warmth, and competence are the bread and butter of social psychology. Their antecedents and consequences have been explored frequently using semantic priming, in keeping with early models of memory representation as a semantic network of concept nodes. Contrary to what these models would predict, sensorimotor experiences in multiple modalities have proven capable of activating abstract constructs, even if they are no more than metaphorically related. In this paper, I review illustrative evidence for multimodal priming of abstract constructs through embodied metaphors. This work has implications for debates about the activation of mental content and the form of mental representation. It also highlights the need to address several thorny issues for theoretical advances. Address University of Toronto, Canada Corresponding author: Lee, Spike W.S. ([email protected]) Current Opinion in Psychology 2016, 12:37–44 This review comes from a themed issue on Social priming Edited by Fritz Strack and Norbert Schwarz http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.016 2352-250X/# 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Social psychologists entertain abstract constructs. Morality, warmth, competence, power, valence — all are meaningful yet not very imageable; they are applicable across various instantiations rather than tied to fixed manifestations [1–4]. To study their antecedents and consequences, priming has become a standard method [5], thanks to the importation of influential cognitive paradigms into social psychology in the 1970s. In its most basic sense, ‘priming refers to procedures that stimulate or activate some stored knowledge’ [6, p. 134]. This raises two fundamental questions: (1) What procedures can stimulate or activate abstract constructs? (2) How are these abstract constructs stored or represented? Semantic vs. multimodal priming of abstract constructs How abstract constructs are activated depends partly on how they are represented. Early models conceptualize memory representation as a semantic network of concept nodes. To activate a node, one needs to stimulate it, or its www.sciencedirect.com associated nodes (from which activation spreads [7]), using semantic stimuli, which were presented mostly in linguistic forms in social psychology, like trait terms [8] or stereotypical concepts [9]. This approach gained tremendous momentum, with countless studies attesting to the consequences of semantic priming [6,10–12]. But does the activation of abstract constructs require linguistic, semantic primes? Or can they be primed by something non-linguistic and much more basic, like lowlevel sensorimotor cues of perceptual experience? Classic views on priming would predict not, given the dissociation of perceptual representation from semantic and other memory systems [13]. Contrary to this prediction, numerous basic sensorimotor manipulations have been shown to activate abstract constructs [14 ]. Because sensorimotor experiences in multiple modalities (e.g., tactile, olfactory, gustatory) can function as effective primes, I call this process multimodal priming of abstract constructs. How can multimodal experiences activate abstract constructs? Through embodied metaphors, according to a rapidly growing body of experimental evidence. To understand this process, two common confusions require clarification. Conceptual vs. linguistic metaphor By metaphor, I mean conceptual metaphor, not linguistic metaphor. ‘The essence of [conceptual] metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another’ [15, p. 5] such that ‘metaphorical entailments can characterize a coherent system of metaphorical concepts and a corresponding coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts’ [p. 9]. A linguistic metaphor is the surface-level manifestation of a deeper conceptual system of ‘cross-domain mapping’ [16, p. 203], typically from sensorimotor experiences (e.g., clean, warm) to abstract constructs (e.g., moral, affectionate). Empirically, to study a linguistic metaphor, it obviously has to be present in language. But a conceptual metaphor — if it really exists in the conceptual system — can exert its influence without language [17], through sensorimotor cues like touch, taste, smell, sound, location, and movement [14 ]. A conceptual metaphor lends itself to multimodal priming. Metaphorical vs. nonmetaphorical A metaphorical relation involves cross-domain mapping; a direct, nonmetaphorical relation involves within-domain mapping [15,18,19]. This distinction appears easy Current Opinion in Psychology 2016, 12:37–44
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