Research article summary:

The roles of body and mind in abstract thought.

Abstract Extract:
How are people able to think about things they have never seen or touched? We demonstrate that abstract knowledge can be built analogically from more experience-based knowledge. Peoples understanding of the abstract domain of time, for example, is so ... (Full abstract text below)

Published 2002Mar in Journal: Psychol Sci (Language : eng)

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1. Psychol Sci. 2002 Mar;13(2):185-9

The roles of body and mind in abstract thought.

Boroditsky L, Ramscar M

Department of Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA. lera@mit.edu

How are people able to think about things they have never seen or touched? We demonstrate that abstract knowledge can be built analogically from more experience-based knowledge. People's understanding of the abstract domain of time, for example, is so intimately dependent on the more experience-based domain of space that when people make an air journey or wait in a lunch line, they also unwittingly (and dramatically) change their thinking about time. Further, our results suggest that it is not sensorimotor spatial experience per se that influences people's thinking about time, but rather people's representations of and thinking about their spatial experience.

PMID : 11934006 [PubMed - Indexed for MEDLINE]

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Full Author Information

First Name	LastName	Initials
Lera	Boroditsky	L
Michael	Ramscar	M

Affiliation: Department of Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA. lera@mit.edu

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