Author(s)

Hang Zhang, Chenyu Li, Xingruo Sun

Corresponding Author

Hang Zhang

ABSTRACT

Previous researches have shown that motor actions that correspond to the “good is up/bad is down” metaphor may help people in retrieving memories with corresponding positive/negative emotion valence. The SUMM (strategic use of mental metaphors) effect is an extension of this research to provide evidence that metaphor-congruence helps word learning. In the present study, we use the Casasanto 2019 experiment as a model to investigate the relationship between an auditory generated metaphor-congruence and word learning. Experiment 1 will provide a test-ground to prove the auditory mental representation of “good” as corresponding to ascending pitch, and “bad” as descending pitch. Experiment 2 will test the effect of such auditory metaphor-congruence in word learning. The experiments will provide extended research to the effect of metaphor-congruence and memory, and their significant result is expected to support the SUMM effect in the auditory sense.

KEYWORDS

Mental metaphor, Metaphor-congruence, Modality-specificity, Pitch, Valence judgment