Metaphorical Cognition And Event-related Potential Study Of "red Tongue Indicates Heat Syndrome

Tongue diagnosis is an important part of the theoretical system of traditional Chinese medicine.In recent years,the modern research on tongue diagnosis mainly focuses on the objectification of the tongue image and the association between the tongue image and the disease of Western medicine,while the research on the thinking process of tongue diagnosis has few results.This paper takes "red tongue on behalf of heat syndrome" as an example to explore the thinking process of tongue diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine.The first is the literature research,taking the Encyclopaedia of Traditional Chinese Medical as the main reference material,collecting the records of "red tongue" and "heat syndrome" as well as the relationship between "red tongue" and "heat syndrome",summarizing the ancient doctors’ understanding of "red tongue" and "heat syndrome" as well as the relationship between the two,analyzing this from the perspective of metaphorical cognition,and expound the metaphorical characteristics of "red tongue on behalf of heat syndrome",the mainstream view of TCM tongue diagnosis.It is found that the correlation between "red tongue" and "heat syndrome" should be attributed to the metaphorical mapping of "fire" in nature to "fire" in human body.When doctors observed "red tongue" and "heat syndrome",they found many similarities with "natural fire".For example,"Red tongue" has the characteristics of "natural fire" red color,sharp shape and good movement.In the "heat syndrome",the clinical manifestations represented by "hot,red,yellow,thick,impetuous and dynamic",as well as the treatment methods of "bitter cold" and "nourishing Yin" can all be similar to the characteristics and extinguishing methods of "natural fire".Therefore,when faced with "red tongue" and "heat syndrome",ancient doctors often used "natural fire" to understand the two,and explained the formation mechanism of "red tongue" and "heat syndrome" with the characteristics of "natural fire".With "natural fire" as the source domain and "red tongue" as well as "heat syndrome" become the target domain,the concept of "red tongue on behalf of heat syndrome" was born.The experimental part of this paper is the ERPs study of "red tongue on behalf of heat syndrome",aiming at providing neuroelectrophysiological evidence for the theoretical view of "red tongue on behalf of heat syndrome".In experiment 1,"cold,hot,neutral" TCM symptoms and signs were used as language materials,and "red tongue" tongue diagnosis images were used as image materials.Behavioral and event-related brain potentials research methods were used to explore whether there was semantic consistency or semantic conflict between "red tongue" and TCM symptoms and signs with different bias.The results showed that there was a significant semantic consistency between "red tongue" and "hot" TCM symptoms and signs,while there was semantic conflict with other TCM symptoms and signs.However,in the study results of event-related brain potentials,the combination of "red tongue" and three kinds of TCM symptoms and signs all triggered the ERPs component N450 which suggested conflict,indicating that there was also a certain degree of cognitive conflict between "red tongue" and "hot" TCM symptoms and signs.This phenomenon may be related to the inconsistent "degree of heat" of TCM symptoms and signs classified as "heat" and the inconsistent "typical degree of red tongue" of tongue diagnosis images classified as "red tongue".In experiment 2,the combination of TCM symptoms and signs of "total cold,total heat,half cold and half heat" was used as language materials,and the "red tongue" tongue diagnosis images and "black and white" tongue diagnosis images were used as image materials.Behavioral and event-related brain potentials research methods were used to explore the influence of "red tongue" on the diagnosis of "heat syndrome" when combined with different types of TCM symptoms and signs.The results showed that when the types of TCM symptoms and signs were unchanged,the presence of "red tongue" tongue diagnosis images could significantly improve the proportion of subjects giving "heat syndrome"diagnosis;However,when the "red tongue" tongue diagnosis images were unchanged,the change of the types of TCM symptoms and signs could also have a great impact on the proportion of subjects giving "heat syndrome" diagnosis.This indicates that "red tongue" has strong proof power in the diagnosis of "heat syndrome",but "red tongue" is not the decisive evidence for the diagnosis of "heat syndrome".