Conceptual metaphors

Evidence for Conceptual Metaphors The Metaphor Consistency Effect... 

How could one test for large-scale conceptual metaphoric systems Gentner and Boronat (1992, in preparation Gentner, 1992) devised a mixed mapping paradigm. This technique is based on the boggle reaction that occurs when one reads mixed metaphors, such as these examples from the New Yorker. 

To establish a global mapping, we asked subjects to read vignettes containing a series of conceptual metaphors from a single coherent domain. The passages were presented one sentence at a time subjects pressed a key to see the next sentence. The final test sentence was either consistent, in that the same metaphor was maintained throughout, e.g.,... 

Allbritton, D. W. (1995). When metaphors function as schemas some cognitive effects of conceptual metaphors. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10 (1), 1-58. 

Allbritton, D. W., McKoon, G., and Gerrig, R. J. (1995). Metaphor-based schemas and text representations making connections through conceptual metaphors. Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21 (3), 612-625. 

The essays in this volume consider the question of whether the self is a unity or whether it should be conceived without metaphor as divided - as a multiple self. The issue is a central one for several disciplines. It bears directly on the account of rationality and the explanation of individual decision-making and behaviour. Is the hypothesis of a multiple self required to deal with the problems of self-deception and weakness of will and can the conceptual tools developed in the study of interpersonal conflict be applied to the analysis of intra-personal struggle ... 

To speak of an effort required to overcome matter is of course to speak metaphorically but I have already noted that Aristode such language in his discussion of the unmoved mover and actuality in the Metaphysics. So, to continue with this metaphorical language, if there were any gap between the unmoved movers actuality and his potentiality for that actuality, an effort would be required in order to actualize the potentiality. But, because the unmoved mover has no share in potentiality and hence no share in matter, the gap between the potency for an activity and the activity itself vanishes leaving in its wake an effordess, seamless eternal activity. Of course, the activity cannot be dynamical—it cannot involve the spatial world. For such an activity would require matter. Rather, the activity is pure thought thinking itself. And so, the idea of form-m, when carried to its conceptual extreme, leads direcdy to the idea of the unmoved over.7... 

Cultural Specificity of Spatial Conceptualization and Metaphorical Use of Space... 

Thus the mere presence of metaphorical language does not by itself tell us whether the space-time metaphor is a psychologically real conceptual mapping. For example, the temporal and spatial meanings could be represented as alternate meaning senses or even as separate homophonic lexical entries. The apparent systematicity would then be illusory, the result of post hoc regularization. 

The most obvious advantage of the ego-moving framework is that it requires fewer distinct conceptual points. Statements in the ego-moving metaphor express the temporal relationship between an event and an observer (e.g., We are approaching the holidays ) and therefore can be represented as two points on a time-line ... 

A final point is the conceptual utility of the space-time metaphor. The two space-time systems exhibit three characteristics that facilitate reasoning, as laid out by Gattis (in preparation). They use ordered space to represent elements (here, events) and their relations (sequential ordering) they use spatial dimensions (here, a single linear dimension, which is placed in correspondence with time s single dimension) and they appear to form non-arbitrary analogs for abstract concepts. Temporal reasoning is non-trivial, as any traveler can attest. Perhaps these metaphors retain their systematicity because they do serious work for us. 

Gentner, D., and Boronat, C. (1991). Metaphors are (sometimes) processed as domain mappings. Paper presented at the Symposium on Metaphor and Conceptual Change, Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Chicago. 

Gentner, D., and Wolff, P. (2000). Metaphor and knowledge change. In E. Dietrich and A. B. Markman (eds.), Cognitive dynamics conceptual change in humans and machines (pp. 295-342). Mahwah, N.J. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

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