A Body of Knowledge (01-11-10)

A lot of the metaphors we use everyday are more reality-based than you might at first assume.  As Isanski and West report:  “The cold shoulder. A heavy topic.  A heroic white knight.  We regularly use concrete, sensory-rich metaphors like these to express abstract ideas and complicated emotions.  But a growing body of research is suggesting that these metaphors are more than just colorful literary devices – there may be an underlying neural basis that literally embodies these metaphors.”  For example, feeling socially distant from other people makes us literally feel cold and colors are linked in our subconscious to morality – with black being tied to immorality and white to morality. Researchers feel that these color associations may be rooted in concerns for physical safety and relate to being in dark places.  Carrying heavy objects requires more effort, just as thinking about heavy topics does.  Next time a sensory-rich metaphor comes to mind as you move through a design project, take heed! 

Barbara Isanski and Catherine West.  2010.  “The Body of Knowledge:  Understanding Embodied Cognition.”  The Observer, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 14-18.