Verticality vs. Brightness: Relative Strength and Properties of Conceptual Metaphors for Affective Valence

Abstract

A conceptual metaphor is an apparent cognitive principle in which abstract concepts are represented via processing of concrete source domains. Commonly attested conceptual metaphors are those for affective valence, which appears to be represented in part through activation of perceptual domains for brightness and verticality. Positive affect is contended to be rooted partly in the concepts of "up" (high vertical position) and "bright" (high reflectance or luminance), while negative affect is contended to be rooted partly in the concepts of "down" and "dark". Paradigms that evince these metaphors often involve performance of an affect-salient task related to valenced stimuli presented in metaphor-congruent (bright/up or dark/down) or metaphor-incongruent (bright/down or dark/up) contexts. Performance is generally found to be better in metaphor-congruent vs. incongruent conditions, constituting a "metaphor-(in)congruency effect". Observation of this effect is inconsistent, however, particularly regarding negative valence. Furthermore, it is unclear if this (in)congruency effect is due to a facilitation mechanism, an interference mechanism, or both. The present research employed two studies, whose goals were to: replicate the metaphor-(in)congruency effects for these verticality and brightness metaphors, discern whether these effects are facilitative or interferent in nature, determine whether one domain –verticality or brightness-is more important than the other in representing affect, and explore possible influences of individual differences in optimism and mood on these effects. The studies found strong evidence for a brightness-metaphor congruency effect for positive valence due to facilitation and weak support for a verticality-metaphor congruency effect for negative valence. The focal metaphors of verticality and brightness were not found to differ in their importance to the concept of affect. Few salient effects of optimism and mood were observed. The present study offers evidence that source domains can facilitate the representation of abstract domains and that brightness and verticality are likely comparable in their importance to affect-conceptualization. Further insight into metaphoric effects can deepen understanding of how our minds represent abstract concepts and could have practical implications, as well.