The Embodied Simulation Effect Of English Spatial Orientation Sentences And The Embodied Metaphorical Effect Of Spatial Metaphorical Sentences

Embodied language understanding emphasizes the important role of bodily perceptual experience in language processing,and language processing is inseparable from the participation of perception and motor systems.From Merleau-Ponty’s "Phenomenology of Perception" to Lakoff and Johnson’s "The Metaphor We Live By",and to the linguistic research on embodied cognition in China,embodied language understanding has become an important research question in psychology and cognitive linguistics.The theory of embodied cognition of language states that concrete concepts and abstract concepts are built on the basis of human sensorimotor experience.Human cognition of specific concepts is generally carried out through embodied psychological simulation,sensorimotor brain regions participate in psychological simulation in the process of semantic understanding,and people achieve cognition and understanding of specific concepts through the psychological simulation process.Unlike concrete concepts,abstract concepts cannot be directly understood through concrete perceptual perception and motor experience,but through metaphors and action simulations,etc.,on the basis of human long-term perceptual motor experience.The concept of space is the earliest and most familiar concept of human beings,the "up and down" vertical space dimension and the "in and out" space dimension can be perceived almost every moment in people’s daily life,and the study of concrete concept psychological simulation and abstract concept embodied metaphor can improve the understanding and mastery of space concept,and better apply the theory to the field of second language acquisition.In language,the vocabulary that represents the concept of space is usually prepositions,and there is no strict distinction between mediators and verbs in Chinese,while English is considered to be a language that belongs to prepositions,so the experimental material of this study uses English spatial prepositions for research.In conclusion,this study intends to conduct an E-Prime study on the processing of two spatial preposition dimensions(up and down/in and out)from the perspective of embodied cognition,aiming to investigate whether the processing of English spatial sentences/metaphorical sentences has embodied simulation effects and embodied metaphorical effects.The specific research questions are: 1)Is there a difference in the processing of spatial sentences and filled sentences in the embodied simulation under the priming conditions of three kinds of pictures(consistent/inconsistent/neutral)? 2)Under the three picture(consistent/inconsistent/neutral)priming conditions,is there a difference in the processing of metaphorical and filler sentences in the embodied effect?Two experiments were carried out in this study.In order to ensure the effectiveness of the experiment,60 college students who passed CET-6 were selected as participants in this experiment.Experiment 1 investigates the relationship between embodied simulation and cognitive processing of spatial sentences with spatial prepositions from different spatial dimensions,and adopts 2(spatial dimension: up and down/in and out)× 3(priming picture type: consistent/inconsistent/neutral)two-factor internal design.The spatial orientation perception is induced by the spatial schematic diagram of the starting picture,and the experimental task is to ask the participants to make English sentence comprehension judgment,and quickly make meaningless key responses to the sentence after seeing the starting picture and rendering the sentence.The experiment records the reaction time and accuracy.The results show that in the "up and down" spatial dimension,the participant’s response to the spatial sentence judgment was significantly faster than the response to the spatial sentence judgment in the "in and out" dimension.Under the picture initiation condition,when the spatial schematic diagram and the orientation represented by the spatial preposition are consistent,the response to the spatial sentence judgment is significantly faster than the response to the spatial sentence judgment when the representation is inconsistent,and the reaction of the neutral picture is in between.Experiment 2 investigates the embodied metaphorical effect of spatial orientation prepositions from the vertical spatial dimension of "up and down",and conducts English sentence comprehension experiments designed in 2(sentence type:metaphorical sentence/filler sentence)× 3(priming image type:consistent/inconsistent/neutral)two-factor participants.Spatial orientation perception is induced by the spatial schematic diagram of the starting picture,and the metaphorical sentence uses three metaphorical methods: "happiness is up,sadness is down","high status is up,low status is down" and "conscious is up,unconscious is down".The experimental task also required participants to quickly respond meaninglessly to the sentence after seeing the starting picture and rendering the sentence.The experiment records the reaction time and accuracy.The results showed that the response of the participants to the metaphorical sentence judgment was significantly different under the picture priming condition,and when the orientation of the initiation picture and the spatial preposition representation were consistent,the response to the metaphorical sentence judgment was significantly faster than the response to the metaphorical sentence judgment when it was inconsistent,and the correct rate of metaphorical sentence judgment was significantly higher than that of filler sentence judgment.The study concluded as follows:(1)In the specific spatial concept,embodied simulation and spatial preposition processing have the compatibility effect of spatial orientation perception.When the spatial schematic diagram is consistent with the orientation represented by the spatial preposition,the response to the spatial sentence judgment is significantly faster than the response to the spatial sentence judgment when the representation is inconsistent.In the "up and down" spatial dimension,the participant’s response to the judgment of the spatial sentence is significantly faster than the reaction of the spatial sentence judgment in the "in and out" dimension.(2)There is a metaphorical effect of spatial orientation in abstract concepts.When the orientation of the priming picture and the spatial preposition representation are consistent,the response to the metaphorical sentence judgment is significantly faster than the response to the metaphorical sentence judgment when it is inconsistent,and the correct rate of the metaphorical sentence judgment is significantly higher than the correct rate of the filler sentence judgment.