The Influence Of Feature Integration And Processing Depth On Metaphorical Connection Between Moral Concepts And Container Space

How to understand abstract concepts has always been a hot research topic in cognitive linguistics.The rise of embodied cognition thoughts provides a new way to understand abstract concepts.The viewpoint represented by conceptual metaphor theory and perceptual symbol theory holds that abstract concepts are acquired and grasped through the experience of perceptual movement of the body and understood and constructed by means of metaphor.As a typical abstract concept,the acquisition of moral concept’s meaning is also based on relevant experience.A large number of previous studies have found that there are metaphorical connections between moral concepts and perceptual motion experiences,which conclude orientation,color,cleanliness,weight etc.However,few studies have explored the metaphorical connections between moral concepts and container space and their related characteristics.Is there a metaphorical connection between moral concepts and container space? Is this metaphorical connection unidirectional or bidirectional on the mapping? Will feature integration and processing depth affect this metaphorical connection?In order to explore these questions,the metaphorical connection between moral concept and container space is investigated through three studies and five experiments.In the first study,experiment 1 uses Stroop paradigm to preliminarily discuss the metaphorical connection between moral concept and container space,but no metaphorical connection is found.In the second study,experiment 2 and experiment 3 use the priming paradigm to investigate the metaphorical connection between moral concept and container space in two directions of metaphor mapping,and at the same time explore the influence of perceptual processing depth on it.The results show that there are moral and internal metaphorical connections in the two mapping directions under the deep perceptual processing.In the third study,experiments 4 and 5 adopt the Stroop paradigm of adding task requirements to further explore whether feature integration has an impact on the metaphorical connection of the container of moral concepts.The results show that there is a complete metaphorical connection between moral concepts and container space in both directions.Through five experiments,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)There is a metaphorical psychological reality between moral concepts and container space,which is represented as moral internally and immoral externally;(2)The mapping in the understanding of container space metaphor of moral concept is bidirectional;(3)The metaphorical connection and bidirectional mapping of the container space with moral concept are affected by the depth of perceptual processing;(4)The metaphorical connection and bidirectional mapping of the container space of moral concepts are affected by the degree of feature integration.