The Vertical Spatial Metaphor Of The Emotion Process Of Chinese Words And Its Influence On Cognition

The formation and representation of abstract concepts are always the one of hotspot problems to the field of Cognitive Science. It is contended by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory that metaphor is not only the rhetoric but an approach that people conceptualize their abstract concepts in concrete perceptual terms. The system of abstract concept is based on human’s sensation and perception experience and the specific concepts. Emotion color generally refers to human’s attitude or evaluation to something, which is one of the most important abstract concepts. The previous studies try to prove that there is a vertical space metaphor mapping in the characterization of emotional colors. But there are defects in their task which would make the result incorrect.We design three experiments to discuss vertical spatial metaphor representation of the emotion process of Chinese words and prove that characterization of word emotion color can influence human spatial perception. In experiment 1 and experiment 2, we choose quick semantically related judgments as a task to avoid the impact of task-oriented. We present pairs of words which contain emotion color and opponent on meaning by vertical and lateral. Subjects have a faster reaction when “commendatory word is up, derogatory word is down”. There was no significant difference when words were appeared on lateral. In experiment 3 we use a dual-task to prove that thinking abstract concept will have an impact on people’s perception of space. We found subjects have faster response when they saw the target letter on the top of screen after they have reaction to the commendatory first. The same situation appeared when they saw the target letter on bottom after they saw derogatory first. Finally, this study proves there is a vertical space metaphor mapping when people processing abstract concept emotion color. Processing emotion color has effect on vertical space perception.