The Influence Of Spatial Concept On The Bidirectional Mappings Of Temporal Concept And Numerical Concept

Concept mapping,which means one concept processing would affect another concept processing,is one of the study directions in the field of embodied cognition research.The processing of spatial concept,temporal concept and numerical concept are the basis between common perception and advanced cognition,so the mapping between three concept has received extensive attention from a large number of researchers.At present,there are two major theories about the mapping relationship between the three concepts.One is A Theory of Magnitude,which holds that the mapping of three concepts belongs to parallel processing.The mapping intensity between any two concepts is equal and the mapping relation is bidirectional.The second is Conceptual Metaphor Theory,which holds that spatial concepts play a higher role in concept mapping than the other two,and that spatial concepts have a higher mapping strength to the other two concepts,and the mapping relationship is one-way.In order to verify which theory can better describe and explain the mapping mechanism of spatial concept,time concept and quantity concept,this paper focuses on two theoretical controversies: whether there is a bidirectional mapping relationship between temporal concept and numerical concept,and whether the spatial concept will affect the mapping relationship.Therefore,on the basis of summarizing the achievements and defects of previous studies,this paper conducts two studies.Study One aims to explore whether numerical concept produce a mapping to temporal concept,and whether spatial concept can affect the mapping relationship;Study Two aims to explore whether numerical concept produce a mapping to temporal concept,and whether spatial concept can affect the mapping relationship.Through a total of 8 experiments,here are following conclusions drawn in this paper:(1)The results of Study One show that there is a mapping of numerical concept to temporal concept,and could be weakened by the influence of spatial concept.The mapping of spatial concept to temporal concept is stronger than that of numerical concept to temporal concept.(2)The results of Study Two show that there is a mapping of temporal concept to numerical concept,which could not be affected by spatial concept.There is no mapping between spatial concepts and numerical concept.(3)Consider numerical concept may be processed differently in different stimuli-presenting modes,maybe the mapping of numerical concept to temporal concept in Study One and the mapping of temporal concept to numerical concept in Study Two are two unidirectional mapping relationships of different attributes,rather than a bidirectional symmetric mapping relationship.(4)In general,the results of Study One and Study Two are more supportive of Conceptual Metaphor Theory than A Theory of Magnitude,but there are still many inconsistencies and incongruences between the theory and this paper.Therefore,Conceptual Metaphor Theory can only partly explain the current phenomenon of concept mapping.The mechanism of concept mapping may be more complicated than the existing theories.