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Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
Motor fluency shapes abstract concepts
Nature precedings
23 Aug 2010
Abstract
Abstract People with different types of bodies tend to think differently in predictable ways, even about abstract ideas that seem far removed from bodily experience. Right- and left-handers implicitly associate positive ideas like goodness and honesty more strongly with their dominant side of space, the side on which they can interact with their environment more fluently, and negative ideas with their non-dominant side. This suggests a role for motor experience in shaping abstract thoughts. Yet, previous evidence is also consistent with an experience-independent account. Here we show that right-handers' tendency to associate 'good' with right and 'bad' with left can be reversed due to both long- and short-term changes in motor fluency. Among stroke patients who were right-handed prior to unilateral cerebrovascular accident (CVA), those with left-hemiparesis (following right CVA) associated good with right, but those with right-hemiparesis (following left CVA) associated good with left, like natural left-handers. A similar pattern was found in healthy right-handers whose right or left hand was temporarily handicapped in a laboratory training task. Motor experience influences judgments of good and bad, overriding any predispositions due to natural handedness. Even highly abstract ideas depend, in part, on how people interact with the physical world.
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Details
- Title
- Motor fluency shapes abstract concepts
- Creators
- Daniel CasasantoEvangelia Chrysikou
- Publication Details
- Nature precedings
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Arts and Sciences
- Other Identifier
- 991020531862504721