A Study On The Processing Mechanism Of Dual Metaphors Of Moral Concept

Morality is expressed in different forms,where metaphor is an important form of moral existence,because metaphor is the main way we know the world.So this study uses moral vocabularies as experimental material.Two experiments were conducted to explore the dual metaphorical processing mechanisms of spatial metaphor and size metaphor of moral concepts.The categories of moral metaphor mainly include moral vertical space metaphor,moral size metaphor,moral body cleansing metaphor,moral color metaphor and moral temperature metaphor.The vertical spatial metaphor and size metaphor of moral concept are the two most representative of moral metaphors.Therefore,this study selects the vertical spatial metaphor and size metaphor of moral concept.From the two levels of explicit and implicit,the vertical spatial metaphor and the size metaphor of moral concept are simultaneous processing or sequential processing in the processing of metaphor,and how the two types of metaphor afFect the metaphorical processing of moral concepts.Experiment 1 uses a paper and pencil test to examine the dual metaphor processing mechanism of moral concepts from the explicit level.It turns out that the connection "moral and big,immoral and small" between moral concept vocabulary and font size is faster than the connection "the morality is the upper,the immoral is the lower" between the moral concept vocabulary and the vertical spatial orientation.This shows that the moral concept prioritizes the metaphorical processing of font size.The purpose of the second experiment is to use the spatial stroop paradigm to examine the moral concept of the dual metaphor processing mechanism of the implicit level.It also turns out that the connection "moral and big,immoral and small"between moral concept vocabulary and font size is faster than the connection "the morality is the upper,the immoral is the lower" between the moral concept vocabulary and the vertical spatial orientation.The experiment shows that no matter the explicit level or the implicit level,in the process of the dual metaphor of moral concept,there is a phenomenon of metaphorical connection between moral concept and font size.Because at the explicit level,the strength of the moral-sized metaphor is higher than that of the moral vertical space metaphor,so the size and metaphor of the moral concept are processed first.At the level of implicitness,the perceptual clues of font size metaphors are effectively activated during the processing of dual metaphors of moral concepts,and then the processing priority is obtained,and the processing of vertical spatial metaphors is suppressed,so the size and metaphor of moral concepts are processed first.