The Vertical Spatial Metaphor Of Moral Concepts And Its Inlfuence On Spatial Memory

Embodied cognition theory insists that abstract concept is represented by bodyperceptual and movement experience. The way people interact with the world impactson the mental representation of valence information.Three experiments are reported to explore the way that moral concept representsand whether it would have influence on spatial memory with varying difficultyconditions. Three experiments shared the same procedure. In the learning stage,participants learnt the combination of moral events and spatial locations. Thenparticipants recalled the location and marked on the map according to the given eventin the testing stage.The difficulty of three experiments shows a decreasing trend. Experiment1andExperiment2demonstrate moral events activate vertical spatial representation, andbias spatial location memory of satellite maps. The processing of the moral eventproduces an upward bias, and the processing of the immoral event produces adownward bias. Experiment3tested whether participants would show similar effectswhen studying a map with high visual specificity. Overall, moral concepts representvia vertical spatial and affect vertical spatial memory. But spatial bias woulddisappear when the difficulty of the task is changed.