行走在走廊内，我们更喜欢那些与自己行走方向一致的人；抚摸粗糙的物体后会让人觉得做事备感“艰涩”；回忆起遭遇排挤的经历会顿时觉得室温变冷……凡此种种有趣的实验结论及其解释正被冠以“具身认知”的雅号，然而这些研究是否足以可信？

具身-生成取向正在引领当代认知科学加速发展,然而学术界在理解“具身-生成”的内涵上却正 陷入“战国时代”,这严重影响了该取向的理论效力.通过分析来自交叉学科的相关证据,发现“具身”与“生成”既有联系,又有区别,两者相互支撑.具身认知 主要考察嵌入在社会情境中的身体结构、活动、内容与形式对认知活动的影响.“生成”强调认知结构在大脑、身体与环境的结构性耦合中涌现出来的动态机制,尤 其是知觉-行动环路的作用.未来,具身-生成的认知科学只有在应对来自经典认知科学的挑战过程中才有可能走出“战国时代”.

具身道德是指身体及其活动方式与道德心理和行为的相互作用。迄今为止,具身道德研究主要采用道德Stroop范式、内隐联想测验范式、情境操纵范式和心境诱发范式。具身道德的研究内容主要包括身体解剖学结构、知觉经验及身体与环境的嵌入作用与道德心理及行为的相互作用,且在广泛的知觉经验内容中包涵了身体厌恶与道德的关系、自我洁净—道德纯洁隐喻、道德—明度隐喻、道德—颜色隐喻、道德的空间维度与时间维度等多个内容。未来的研究需从研究内容的丰富性与全面性、隐喻效应的文化差异与一致性效应、研究方法技术的科学性与多样性等几个方面着手。

具身认知作为一种新兴思潮,强调身体经验及身体与环境的相互作用对于个体抽象概念及认知的作用。从具身认知的角度出发,考察身体和道德认知加工的关系已成为现今道德心理学和神经科学的研究热点。本文结合以往道德具身认知研究,介绍了概念隐喻理论、知觉符号理论、模拟感觉运动隐喻理论和进化理论四种道德具身认知理论,讨论并分析了现有理论研究中存在的矛盾与问题。未来的研究可在多文化背景下进行,并依靠认知神经科学技术对道德的具身认知机制进行更深入的探究。

Weight metaphor exists in many cultures, the most recent research have found that the metaphor of importance based on the body experience of weight. The perception of weight will affect the judgment of importance, the importance information will also influence weight perception, which suggests that the neural basis for the perception of weight and the related metaphors may be overlap. The embodied theories of conceptual representation and conceptual metaphor provides theoretical foundation to explain this phenomenon. Future research needs to explore the range which weight metaphor can work, and the role of diverse culture in the formation of weight metaphor.

可重复性问题是当前科学界面临的共同问题。最近,心理学研究领域的可重复性问题也受到广泛关注,引起了研究者的积极讨论与探索。通过对2008年发表的100项研究结果进行大规模重复实验,研究者发现,心理学研究的成功重复率约为39%,但该研究仍然存在着巨大的争议,不同的研究者对其结果的解读不尽相同。针对可重复性问题,研究者通过数据模拟、元分析以及调查等多种方法来分析和探索其原因,这些研究表明,可重复性问题本质上可能是发表的研究假阳性过高,可疑研究操作是假阳性过高的直接原因,而出版偏见和过度依赖虚无假设检验则是更加深层的原因。面对可重复性问题,研究者从统计方法和研究实践两个方面提出了相应的解决方案,这些方法与实践正在成为心理学研究的新标准。然而,要解决可重复性问题,还需要心理学研究领域的多方参与,尤其是在政策上鼓励公开、透明和开放的研究取向,避免出版偏见。心理学研究者为解决可重复性问题做出的努力,不仅会加强心理学研究的可靠性,也为其他学科解决可重复问题提供了借鉴,推动科学界可重复问题的解决。

中国礼文化蕴含着丰富的隐喻机制,其中蜷缩的身体动作如弯腰、俯视、跪是与高社会地位群体社交的常用姿势。通过3个社会情境实验考察身体蜷缩程度与社会地位的隐喻效应。实验1显示与扩张姿势相比,保持蜷缩姿势的被试对被评价对象的社会地位评分更高。实验2控制被试的社交对象,发现与低社会地位人物相比,被试与高社会地位人物社交时身体蜷缩程度更大。实验3同时控制被试的身体姿势与视角空间,结果是跪姿被试比坐姿被试对被评价对象的社会地位评分更高,俯视被试比仰视被试对被评价对象的认同度更高。以上结果可证明中国礼文化中蜷缩身体姿势与社会地位的双向隐喻效应,同时,身体与空间的双重隐喻启动时其联结效应独立产生作用。

情绪具身性有着广泛的理论假说与研究证据,从情绪外周理论到面部反馈假说、躯体标记假说再到 现在的情绪具身观,都一致认为情绪是具身的。情绪具身观认为情绪是包括大脑在内的身体的情绪,身体的解剖学结构、身体的活动方式、身体的感觉和运动体验决 定了我们怎样加工情绪。相关的行为和脑机制研究均支持了情绪加工的具身性。目前关于具身情绪的理论解释主要有镜像神经元系统假说、具身模仿论和知觉符号系 统理论等。作为一种新兴的理论观点,情绪具身观为情绪研究提供了新的视角。

目的：考察大学生道德概念的重量和洁净隐喻，为大学生道德概念发展和道德教育干预提供参考依据。方法：采用词汇评价法和句子启动法，要求大学生分别在左手托重条件下和洁净与肮脏句子启动条件下，对道德与非道德概念词进行评价。结果：左手托重50g和100g组大学生对道德概念词的评价均显著高于对非道德概念词的评价（F＝51．5，119．5；P＜00．5），并且左手托重100g大学生对道德概念词的评价显著高于左手托重50g和0g组被试（t＝44．5，66．4；P＜00．01），表现出了道德概念的重量隐喻；洁净启动组和肮脏启动组大学生对道德概念词的评价均显著高于非道德概念词的评价（ F＝227．1，792．7；P＜00．01），表现出了道德概念的洁净隐喻和道德概念的净化效应。结论：抽象的道德概念词和重量与洁净的具身隐喻自动联结起来，强化大学生的清洁行为和身体负重感可以提高其道德判断的能力。

实验伦理学的一些研究发现,诸如上下、左右、高低、轻重、软硬、强弱、大小、远近、明暗、洁脏、甜苦、香臭、热冷等物理变量的改变与心理变量存在对应关系。物理变量的改变在具体情境中可使人的道德判断和道德行为发生较大变化,从而使该类研究成为了实验伦理学领域中一个探索方向,我们将其命名为道德的心理物理学。这种借助物理变量来理解抽象道德概念的心理机制,涉及表征认知、隐喻认知和具身认知三种思维策略。基于计算机模型的表征认知与隐喻认知从概念层面上将物理变量与道德概念建立语义联系,而基于生物有机体模型的具身认知则通过具体的身体状态和动作的变化与道德概念建立联系。这三种认知方式形成的物理变量与道德概念之间联结成带有道德意涵的认知单元,它将作为认知过程的载体影响人类的道德判断和行为。同时,这种两阶段模型在某种程度上受到人类的内在思维特性以及社会文化和历史时代的影响,因此,我们还需要更多的实证探索与跨文化分析,以期对个体的道德教育与社会政策的制定产生一定的指导作用。

具身认知强调身体的感知觉在认知过程中发挥着重要的作用。有研究者将物理变量的改变使得人们的道德行为和道德判断发生变化这一探讨方向命名为"道德的心理物理学"。元分析研究的目的在于探讨个体的感知觉与道德行为和道德判断之间是否存在联系,以及这种效应是否受到某些变量的影响。元分析纳入42个研究,共包含2962名被试。研究结果表明道德的具身认知效应显著,具体感知觉与道德行为和道德判断之间存在相关(r=0.19,p0.01)。"被试来源国家"这一变量的调节作用显著(Q=79.454,df=41,p0.001)。

具身理论是继计算隐喻、联结主义之后诠释人类是如何获取知识表征世界这样一个本质性问题的新视角,指出概念系统的建构对真实身体及其身体活动的体验的依赖,即具身性。随着认知科学的快速发展,具身理论已从原始阶段的哲学思辨成为认知心理学、社会认知等领域解释各种现象的一种新的研究范式。文章简要回顾了具身理论的起源及发展,选取了社会认知心理学中主要的研究对象,即态度、社会知觉、情绪等,总结具身理论在这些领域的研究范式及最新研究成果。最后,文章从实证的角度指出在社会认知领域中以具身理论为框架开展实证研究时值得注意的要点,并提出此类研究结合其他研究视角（例如,神经科学,跨文化心理学）的可能性。

具身社会认知是具身认知同社会认知对话的产物，这种对话从三个维度展开，即具身自我认知、具身人际认知、具身群体认知。本研究不仅论证了具身认知的视角提高了传统社会认知心理学的生态效度，而且从进化心理学、镜像神经元、认知语言学、发生认识论视角对具身社会认知的现象进行了归因探析。具身社会认知作为一种研究思潮，面l临着一些挑战，比如：（1）具身社会认知是否是向行为主义研究范式的回归；（2）具（体）身（体）是否仅仅是社会认知过程的一种附带现象，等等。

隐喻是指利用具体形象概念理解抽象概念。随着第二代认知革命的兴起,具身认知给道德心理学领域的概念隐喻研究注入了新的活力。具身道德的概念隐喻研究主要围绕空间维度、颜色维度、大小维度等角度展开。考虑到身体变量对道德概念理解的影响,未来具身道德角度的概念隐喻研究,应整合概念隐喻理论和具身认知理论,采用更生态化的实验范式进一步探讨和验证道德概念隐喻的多种维度,并需对道德概念的隐喻研究作跨文化探索。

随着具身认知的兴起和发展,道德隐喻的研究焕发新活力。在此背景下,本研究从红白颜色、左右位置和正斜字体三个维度考察道德概念的隐喻表征。实验1的结果显示,红白颜色可能并不与道德概念存在隐喻表征。实验2表明,左右位置与道德概念交互作用显著,左边、右边位置分别与不道德概念、道德概念存在一致的隐喻表征。实验3发现,正斜字体对道德概念的判断具有干扰作用,正体字与道德词汇隐喻表征一致,斜体字与不道德词汇隐喻表征一致。研究表明：左右位置、正斜字体与道德概念存在一定的隐喻联结。

With the approach of theoretical psychology, this paper is to explore the possible relations between cognition and body in light of embodiment thesis. According to present author, Dualist viewpoints of mind-body relationship, until recently, have been in dominant position in western culture. The denial of the body in consideration of human mind has been a heritage of the western intellectual zeitgeist since the time of the ancient Greeks. Plato put the body in the position of distraction in intellectual life, and separated the human soul from the body. He is the earliest representative of dualism. In the 17th century, a philosopher of France, Rene Descartes, epistemologically, demonstrated the existence of the dualist world, and distinguished between physical substances and thinking substance. According to Descartes, physical substances (“res extensa”)could be measured and divided, and occupied a physical space, while the thinking substance (“res cogitans”) could not be divided, and was unextended into physical space. Following in Descartes’ footsteps, traditional cognitive science took the metaphor, the MIND IS A COMPUTER. Human mind has been modeled as a digital computer, and cognition was considered as an autonomous, logical, and disembodied process. There was a sharp line between human physical capacities and its intellectual abilities. This kind of dualist viewpoints has been challenged, however, in recent decades in cognitive science. One of the most recent developments that has implications for understanding the relationship between cognition and body is that of embodied mind. According to proponents of theoretical models of embodiment, cognition is body’s cognition, and body is the subject rather than the object of cognition. In author’s opinion, the dependence of cognition on body can be in the following aspects: (1) an agent’s body in action is a powerful constraint on how the agent conceive their environments. Because of its bodily shape and structure, some forms of cognition tend to be easier, and some kinds of cognition tend to be difficult even impossible. (2) an agent’s body can function to distribute cognitive tasks between brain and body, and between body and environment. This means that the mind extends beyond the skull and skin into the outer physical environment, and cognitive systems may loop into the world and hence constitute hybrid systems consisting of both neural and non-neural parts of the body. (3) an agent’s body can regulate cognitive activity and influence mental processes. Nodding our heads result in more positive evaluations, while shaking our heads result in more negative evaluations. This indicate our body’s influence on our mind. Generally speaking, body and mind are not separated but unified. The interaction between body and the world made the mind become possible.

The viewpoints of embodied cognition advocate that cognition is essentially embodied and the body plays a pivotal role in an organism’s cognitive processes. Traditional symbolic–computational theories assume conceptual representation is stored as abstract symbols in semantic memory, separated from systems governing perception and action. The embodied theories of conceptual representation hold that conceptual representation is grounded in the same neural systems that govern sensation, perception and action. According this viewpoint, concepts are essentially neural recordings during perceptual and motor experiences, and these recordings can later be re–enacted as the way of conceptual processing. Recent work has focused on the emergence of perceptual phenomena in conceptual processing, the effect of body movement on conceptual processing, the embodied effect for processing abstract conception, the embodied effect for processing combined concept and modality switching costs effect. Future researches should focus on combining symbolic–computational theories and embodied theories.

Metaphor is a common linguistic phenomenon. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) assumes that metaphor is not only just the language we use to communicate: it reflects a cognitive character that sensorimotor experiences and concrete concepts serve as the foundation for the development of more abstract concepts. According to CMT, the sensorimotor information should be an integral part for representing abstract concepts and the sensorimotor experiences also can be activated as the way of abstract conceptual processing. A growing body of work has found that the processes of abstract concepts are linked to the physical experiences that describe them metaphorically. These studies involve spatial metaphor, thermal metaphor, clean metaphor, haptic metaphor and so on. Future researches should focus on the effect of multiple metaphors on conceptual processing, determine how the unidirectional relationship and bidirectional relationship are shaped and develop the application of CMT.

Abstract Touch is both the first sense to develop and a critical means of information acquisition and environmental manipulation. Physical touch experiences may create an ontological scaffold for the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal conceptual and metaphorical knowledge, as well as a springboard for the application of this knowledge. In six experiments, holding heavy or light clipboards, solving rough or smooth puzzles, and touching hard or soft objects nonconsciously influenced impressions and decisions formed about unrelated people and situations. Among other effects, heavy objects made job candidates appear more important, rough objects made social interactions appear more difficult, and hard objects increased rigidity in negotiations. Basic tactile sensations are thus shown to influence higher social cognitive processing in dimension-specific and metaphor-specific ways.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by Craig DeLancey Andy Clark. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension . New York: Oxford UP, 2008. 320 pp. Andy Clark’s works set the standard for theoretical cognitive science corroborated by wide-ranging surveys of empirical results. His philosophical claims are always simultaneously provocative and productive: he not only criticizes but always offers new directions for research. Supersizing the Mind is Clark’s most recent book of this kind. Supersizing the Mind supersizes the arguments made by Clark and David Chalmers in their seminal 1998 Analysis paper, “The Extended Mind.” That paper (handily included as an appendix to this book) argued for the then radical, but also immensely compelling, claim that cognition can extend not only outside the skull, but outside the body. The arguments in that paper made use of a simple parity principle: “If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (for that time) part of the cognitive process” (77). Thus, they argued, a man Otto who reliably used a notebook to guide his actions can be said to have beliefs that are recorded in the notebook—at least when using the notebook in certain kinds of ways. The parity principle provides a powerful argument for extending cognition; those who oppose the extended mind hypothesis must offer some non-arbitrary reason to rule out these particular instances of potential extension. Many have tried, of course, and in this book, Clark sets out to explain, emend, and defend the hypothesis. The book has three distinct parts. The first provides the context for the extended mind. Clark reviews research and provides a theoretical perspective, that reveals (mostly) human minds as economically exploiting their environment in ways that minimize the demands for internal representation when the environment itself can do the required work. Thus, “ the canny cognizer tends to recruit, on the spot, whatever mix of problem-solving resources will yield an acceptable result with a minimum of effort ” (13; Clark’s emphasis). This can include not bothering to remember elements of the environment if one can merely look at them to check on their status. Clark also reviews the kinds and complexities of mind-and-world interactions and entrainings. This guiding principle of cognitive economy also elegantly relates Clark’s work on embodiment to his work on the extended mind; the main lesson of [End Page 415] embodiment is that the body and its environment can solve problems in place of complex representations or algorithms. The second part of the book defends the extended mind hypothesis from a range of critical responses to the original paper. Most of these criticisms are, as Clark shows, off the mark. For example, they include the claim that the notebook referred to in the original paper is, on the extended mind hypothesis, itself conscious or cognitive. Clark patiently explains that it is the agent and the notebook that have cognition, never the notebook alone. He unequivocally clarifies that the human body is necessary for human cognition, the body is cognition’s source and font, and that there is no inconsistency between his work on embodiment and the extended mind hypothesis. Here, Clark’s ecumenicalism—his willingness, shared by most other cognitive scientists, to approach the study of mind from a very diverse range of perspectives, bringing to bear many different kinds of models—comes to the fore. Extending the mind is an important strategy but only one that thinking agents use. The final part of the book is a different kind of clarification: an exploration of the limits of embodiment and the extended mind. This begins with Clark’s criticism of proposals by No05 and others that perception is always actively constructive and dependent upon motor engagement with the environment. Clark rejects this by—unsurprisingly—proposing a mixed model of perception in which the role of motor engagement in perception requires that there be some dedicated and stable representations of which perception can make use. These explain, for example, the dual-stream models of vision...

Abstract Awe has been theorized as a collective emotion, one that enables individuals to integrate into social collectives. In keeping with this theorizing, we propose that awe diminishes the sense of self and shifts attention away from individual interests and concerns. In testing this hypothesis across 6 studies (N = 2137), we first validate pictorial and verbal measures of the small self; we then document that daily, in vivo, and lab experiences of awe, but not other positive emotions, diminish the sense of the self. These findings were observed across collectivist and individualistic cultures, but also varied across cultures in magnitude and content. Evidence from the last 2 studies showed that the influence of awe upon the small self accounted for increases in collective engagement, fitting with claims that awe promotes integration into social groups. Discussion focused on how the small self might mediate the effects of awe on collective cognition and behavior, the need to study more negatively valenced varieties of awe, and other potential cultural variations of the small self. (PsycINFO Database Record.

[Abstract unavailable]

Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotype become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through the use of the same priming procedures as in previous impression formation research, Experiment 1 showed that participants whose concept of rudeness was printed interrupted the experimenter more quickly and frequently than did participants primed with polite-related stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants for whom an elderly stereotype was primed walked more slowly down the hallway when leaving the experiment than did control participants, consistent with the content of that stereotype. In Experiment 3, participants for whom the African American stereotype was primed subliminally reacted with more hostility to a vexatious request of the experimenter. Implications of this automatic behavior priming effect for self-fulfilling prophecies are discussed, as is whether social behavior is necessarily mediated by conscious choice processes.

In common parlance, moral transgressions "leave a bad taste in the mouth." This metaphor implies a link between moral disgust and more primitive forms of disgust related to toxicity and disease, yet convincing evidence for this relationship is still lacking. We tested directly the primitive oral origins of moral disgust by searching for similarity in the facial motor activity evoked by gustatory distaste (elicited by unpleasant tastes), basic disgust (elicited by photographs of contaminants), and moral disgust (elicited by unfair treatment in an economic game). We found that all three states evoked activation of the levator labii muscle region of the face, characteristic of an oral-nasal rejection response. These results suggest that immorality elicits the same disgust as disease vectors and bad tastes.

This work examines the process through which thrift versus prestige goals can nonconsciously affect decisions in a choice task. Drawing upon research on nonconscious goal pursuit, we present a theoretical framework detailing how consumer choices are affected by incidentally activated goals. We show that such primed goals have motivational properties consistent with goal pursuit but inconsistent with mere cognitive activation; the effects are greater with a longer time interval between the priming task and the choice and are less pronounced when the primed goal is satiated in a real, as opposed to a hypothetical, intervening choice task. Additionally, we show that subliminally evoked retail brand names can serve as the cues that activate purchasing goals.

Guilt is an important social and moral emotion. In addition to feeling unpleasant, guilt is metaphorically described as a “weight on one's conscience.” Evidence from the field of embodied cognition suggests that abstract metaphors may be grounded in bodily experiences, but no prior research has examined the embodiment of guilt. Across four studies we examine whether i) unethical acts increase subjective experiences of weight, ii) feelings of guilt explain this effect, and iii) whether there are consequences of the weight of guilt. Studies 1–3 demonstrated that unethical acts led to more subjective body weight compared to control conditions. Studies 2 and 3 indicated that heightened feelings of guilt mediated the effect, whereas other negative emotions did not. Study 4 demonstrated a perceptual consequence. Specifically, an induction of guilt affected the perceived effort necessary to complete tasks that were physical in nature, compared to minimally physical tasks.

ABSTRACT090000 We present a theory about human thought named the unconscious-thought theory (UTT). The theory is applicable to decision making, impression formation, attitude formation and change, problem solving, and creativity. It distinguishes between two modes of thought: unconscious and conscious. Unconscious thought and conscious thought have different characteristics, and these different characteristics make each mode preferable under different circumstances. For instance, contrary to popular belief, decisions about simple issues can be better tackled by conscious thought, whereas decisions about complex matters can be better approached with unconscious thought. The relations between the theory and decision strategies, and between the theory and intuition, are discussed. We end by discussing caveats and future directions.

The perspective that behavior is often driven by unconscious determinants has become widespread in social psychology. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows' (1996) famous study, in which participants unwittingly exposed to the stereotype of age walked slower when exiting the laboratory, was instrumental in defining this perspective. Here, we present two experiments aimed at replicating the original study. Despite the use of automated timing methods and a larger sample, our first experiment failed to show priming. Our second experiment was aimed at manipulating the beliefs of the experimenters: Half were led to think that participants would walk slower when primed congruently, and the other half was led to expect the opposite. Strikingly, we obtained a walking speed effect, but only when experimenters believed participants would indeed walk slower. This suggests that both priming and experimenters' expectations are instrumental in explaining the walking speed effect. Further, debriefing was suggestive of awareness of the primes. We conclude that unconscious behavioral priming is real, while real, involves mechanisms different from those typically assumed to cause the effect.

A neuroimaging study examined the neural correlates of social exclusion and tested the hypothesis that the brain bases of social pain are similar to those of physical pain. Participants were scanned while playing a virtual ball-tossing game in which they were ultimately excluded. Paralleling results from physical pain studies, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more active during exclusion than during inclusion and correlated positively with self-reported distress. Right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) was active during exclusion and correlated negatively with self-reported distress. ACC changes mediated the RVPFC-distress correlation, suggesting that RVPFC regulates the distress of social exclusion by disrupting ACC activity.

Can sweet-tasting substances trigger kind, favorable judgments about other people? What about substances that are disgusting and bitter? Various studies have linked physical disgust to moral disgust, but despite the rich and sometimes striking findings these studies have yielded, no research has explored morality in conjunction with taste, which can vary greatly and may differentially affect cognition. The research reported here tested the effects of taste perception on moral judgments. After consuming a sweet beverage, a bitter beverage, or water, participants rated a variety of moral transgressions. Results showed that taste perception significantly affected moral judgments, such that physical disgust (induced via a bitter taste) elicited feelings of moral disgust. Further, this effect was more pronounced in participants with politically conservative views than in participants with politically liberal views. Taken together, these differential findings suggest that embodied gustatory experiences may affect moral processing more than previously thought.

To demonstrate that sensory and emotional states play an important role in moral processing, previous research has induced physical disgust in various sensory modalities (visual, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory modalities, among others) and measured its effects on moral judgment. To further assess the strength of the connection between embodied states and morality, we investigated whether the directionality of the effect could be reversed by exposing participants to different types of moral events prior to rating the same neutral tasting beverage. As expected, reading about moral transgressions, moral virtues, or control events resulted in inducing gustatory disgust, delight, or neutral taste experiences, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the relation between embodied cognition and processing abstract conceptual representations.

It is widely accepted in psychology and cognitive science that there are two “systems” in the mind: one system is characterized as quick, intuitive, perceptive, and perhaps more primitive, while the other is described as slower, more deliberative, and responsible for our higher-order cognition. I use the term “reflectivism” to capture the view that conscious reflection—in the “System 2” sense—is a necessary feature of good moral judgment and decision-making. This is not to suggest that System 2 must operate alone in forming our moral decisions, but that it plays a normatively ineliminable role. In this paper, I discuss arguments that have been offered in defense of reflectivism. These arguments fit into two broad categories; let us think of them as two sides of a coin. On the first side are arguments about the efficaciousness of conscious reasoning—for example, without conscious deliberation we will make bad moral judgments and decisions. On the other side of the coin are arguments about the centrality of conscious deliberation to normative actions—for example, without conscious deliberation we are no more agential than animals or automatons. Despite their attractiveness, I argue that these arguments do not successfully establish that reflection is a necessary component of good moral judgment and decision-making. If I am right, the idea that good moral judgment and decision-making can result from entirely automatic and subconscious processes gains traction. My goal in this paper is to show that reflectivism fails to include the full range of cases of moral decision-making and that a theory of automaticity may do a better job. I briefly discuss at the end of the paper how an account of successful automatic moral judgment and decision-making might begin to take shape.

78 Power increases confirmatory information processing. 78 Power is likely to reduce decision quality. 78 Power increases decision certainty.

ABSTRACT It is unclear whether embodied-cognition effects are caused by the activation of cultural-linguistic metaphors, or whether these metaphors stem from preverbal mechanisms that directly affect both language and behavior. Therefore, we conducted a study wherein 62 Israeli participants ate sweet or spicy snacks and performed a social judgment task. Preverbal mechanisms assign positive hedonic value to sweetness and negative value to spiciness. However, in Israeli culture, "sweetness" is used as a metaphor for inauthenticity, whereas "spiciness"stands for intellectual competence. In accordance with the predictions of a culturally-mediated variant of conceptual-metaphor theory, the results showed that priming participants with spicy (vs. sweet) tastes increased judgments of intellectual competence, decreased judgments of inauthenticity, and increased overall evaluation of a social target.

Abstract In recent years, there has been rapidly growing interest in embodied cognition, a multifaceted theoretical proposition that (1) cognitive processes are influenced by the body, (2) cognition exists in the service of action, (3) cognition is situated in the environment, and (4) cognition may occur without internal representations. Many proponents view embodied cognition as the next great paradigm shift for cognitive science. In this article, we critically examine the core ideas from embodied cognition, taking a "thought exercise" approach. We first note that the basic principles from embodiment theory are either unacceptably vague (e.g., the premise that perception is influenced by the body) or they offer nothing new (e.g., cognition evolved to optimize survival, emotions affect cognition, perception-action couplings are important). We next suggest that, for the vast majority of classic findings in cognitive science, embodied cognition offers no scientifically valuable insight. In most cases, the theory has no logical connections to the phenomena, other than some trivially true ideas. Beyond classic laboratory findings, embodiment theory is also unable to adequately address the basic experiences of cognitive life.

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Traditional theories of moral development emphasize the role of controlled cognition in mature moral judgment, while a more recent trend emphasizes intuitive and emotional processes. Here we test a dual-process theory synthesizing these perspectives. More specifically, our theory associates utilitarian moral judgment (approving of harmful actions that maximize good consequences) with controlled cognitive processes and associates non-utilitarian moral judgment with automatic emotional responses. Consistent with this theory, we find that a cognitive load manipulation selectively interferes with utilitarian judgment. This interference effect provides direct evidence for the influence of controlled cognitive processes in moral judgment, and utilitarian moral judgment more specifically.

Abstract Earlier work found that compared to participants who adopted constrictive body postures participants who adopted expansive body postures reported feeling more powerful, showed an increase in testosterone and a decrease in cortisol, and displayed an increased tolerance for risk. However, these power pose effects have recently come under considerable scrutiny. Here, we present a Bayesian metaanalysis of six preregistered studies from this special issue, focusing on the effect of power posing on felt power. Our analysis improves on standard classical meta-analyses in several ways. First and foremost, we considered only preregistered studies, eliminating concerns about publication bias. Second, the Bayesian approach enables us to quantify evidence for both the alternative and the null hypothesis. Third, we use Bayesian model-averaging to account for the uncertainty with respect to the choice for a fixed-effect model or a random-effect model. Fourth, based on a literature review, we obtained an empirically informed prior distribution for the between-study heterogeneity of effect sizes. This empirically informed prior can serve as a default choice not only for the investigation of the power pose effect but for effects in the field of psychology more generally. For effect size, we considered a default and an informed prior. Our meta-analysis yields very strong evidence for an effect of power posing on felt power. However, when the analysis is restricted to participants unfamiliar with the effect, the meta-analysis yields evidence that is only moderate.

Many moral codes place a special emphasis on bodily purity, and manipulations that directly target bodily purity have been shown to influence a variety of moral judgments. Across two studies, we demonstrated that reminders of physical purity influence specific moral judgments regarding behaviors in the sexual domain as well as broad political attitudes. In Study 1, individuals in a public setting who were given a reminder of physical cleansing reported being more politically conservative than did individuals who were not given such a reminder. In Study 2, individuals reminded of physical cleansing in the laboratory demonstrated harsher moral judgments toward violations of sexual purity and were more likely to report being politically conservative than control participants. Together, these experiments provide further evidence of a deep link between physical purity and moral judgment, and they offer preliminary evidence that manipulations of physical purity can influence general (and putatively stable) political attitudes.

Once associating another person with an unpleasant smell, how do we perceive and judge this person from that moment on? Here, we used aversive olfactory conditioning followed by a social attribution task during functional magnetic resonance imaging to address this question. After conditioning, where one of two faces was repeatedly paired with an aversive smell, the participants reported negative affect when viewing the smell-conditioned but not the neutral face. When subsequently confronted with the smell-conditioned face (without any smell), the participants tended to judge both positive and negative behaviors as indicative of personality traits rather than related to the situation. This effect was predicted by the degree of the preceding olfactory evaluative conditioning. Whole brain analysis of stimulus by stage interaction indicated differential activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and right angular gyrus to the conditioned versus the neutral person during the attribution phase only. These results suggest that negative smell associations do not simply induce a negative perception of the target person but rather bias the attribution style towards trait attributions. The fact that this bias was evident regardless of behavior valence suggests it may reflect enhanced psychological distance. Thus, the known observation of social rejection triggered by aversive smell may be driven by a shift in social attribution style.

Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted stronger moral condemnation of behaviors violating purity. In Study 2, experimentally induced disgust, compared with induced sadness, increased condemnation of behaviors violating purity and increased approval of behaviors upholding purity. In Study 3, trait disgust, but not trait anger or trait fear, predicted stronger condemnation of purity violations and greater approval of behaviors upholding purity. We found that, confirming the domain specificity of the disgust-purity association, disgust was unrelated to moral judgments about justice (Studies 1 and 2) or harm/care (Study 3). Finally, across studies, individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely than individuals of higher SES to moralize purity but not justice or harm/care.

Abstract What leads people to describe some of their interpersonal relationships as "close" and "warm" and others as "distant" and "cold"? Landau, Meier, and Keefer (2010) proposed that conceptual metaphors facilitate social cognition by allowing people to use knowledge from a relatively concrete (source) domain (e.g., physical distance) in understanding a different, usually more abstract (target) concept (e.g., love). We concur that such a notion of metaphors can greatly enrich the field of social cognition. At the same time, we believe it is important to devote greater theoretical attention to the nature of metaphorical representations in social cognition. We believe that Landau et al. place too much emphasis on sociocognitive metaphors as top-down knowledge structures and pay too little attention to the constraints that shape metaphors from the bottom up. In the present contribution, we highlight important bottom-up constraints, imposed through bodily constraints and social scaffolds. Sociocognitive metaphors do not exist just for mental representation but for action as well. We discuss the relevance of grounding sociocognitive metaphors for broader motivational purposes. (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

The uniquely human emotion of disgust is intimately connected to morality in many, perhaps all, cultures (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999b). We report two studies suggesting that a predisposition to feel disgust (“disgust sensitivity”) is associated with more conservative political attitudes, especially for issues related to the moral dimension of purity. In the first study, we document a positive correlation between disgust sensitivity and self-reported conservatism in a broad sample of US adults. In Study 2 we show that while disgust sensitivity is associated with more conservative attitudes on a range of political issues, this relationship is strongest for purity-related issues—specifically, abortion and gay marriage.

Two studies demonstrate that a dispositional proneness to disgust ("disgust sensitivity") is associated with intuitive disapproval of gay people. Study 1 was based on previous research showing that people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional when they see it as morally wrong (see Knobe, 2006, for a review). As predicted, the more disgust sensitive participants were, the more likely they were to describe an agent whose behavior had the side effect of causing gay men to kiss in public as having intentionally encouraged gay men to kiss publicly-even though most participants did not explicitly think it wrong to encourage gay men to kiss in public. No such effect occurred when subjects were asked about heterosexual kissing. Study 2 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2006) as a dependent measure. The more disgust sensitive participants were, the more they showed unfavorable automatic associations with gay people as opposed to heterosexuals. Two studies demonstrate that a dispositional proneness to disgust ("disgust sensitivity") is associated with intuitive disapproval of gay people. Study 1 was based on previous research showing that people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional when they see it as morally wrong (see Knobe, 2006, for a review). As predicted, the more disgust sensitive participants were, the more likely they were to describe an agent whose behavior had the side effect of causing gay men to kiss in public as having intentionally encouraged gay men to kiss publicly-even though most participants did not explicitly think it wrong to encourage gay men to kiss in public. No such effect occurred when subjects were asked about heterosexual kissing. Study 2 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2006) as a dependent measure. The more disgust sensitive participants were, the more they showed unfavorable automatic associations with gay people as opposed to heterosexuals.

Schnall, Benton, and Harvey (2008) hypothesized that physical cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. In support of this idea, they found that individuals make less severe judgments when they are primed with the concept of cleanliness (Exp. 1) and when they wash their hands after experiencing disgust (Exp. 2). We conducted direct replications of both studies using materials supplied by the original authors. We did not find evidence that physical cleanliness reduced the severity of moral judgments using samples sizes that provided over.99 power to detect the original effect sizes. Our estimates of the overall effect size were much smaller than estimates from Experiment 1 (original d = -0.60, 95% CI [-1.23, 0.04], N = 40; replication d = -0.01, 95% CI [-0.28, 0.26] , N = 208) and Experiment 2 (original d = -0.85, 95% CI [-1.47, -0.22], N = 43; replication d = 0.01, 95% CI [-.34, 0.36] , N = 126). These findings suggest that the population effect sizes are probably substantially smaller than the original estimates. Researchers investigating the connections between cleanliness and morality should therefore use large sample sizes to have the necessary power to detect subtle effects. 2014.

This paper examines how the type of background music (vocal vs. instrumental) affects consumers' cognitive performance depending on individual differences in executive attention (i.e., working memory capacity). Across three experiments, we find that vocal music leads to poorer cognitive and attitudinal outcomes for consumers lower in working memory capacity but does not affect those higher in working memory capacity. However, short-term habituation to background music helps mitigate this negative effect of vocal music on consumer ad recall. Finally, consumer performances on computing discount prices are also affected by music type depending upon whether prices are communicated in verbal or numeric form. Overall, this research lays out an executive-attention based process mechanism explaining when and how background music shapes consumer learning and memory. The outlined theory enriches the literature on music effects as well as immediate-term learning by explicating the role of selective attention in the processing of multi-modal marketing stimuli.

Trust lies at the heart of person perception and interpersonal decision making. In two studies, we investigated physical temperature as one factor that can influence human trust behavior, and the insula as a possible neural substrate. Participants briefly touched either a cold or warm pack, and then played an economic trust game. Those primed with cold invested less with an anonymous partner, revealing lesser interpersonal trust, as compared to those who touched a warm pack. In Study 2, we examined neural activity during trust-related processes after a temperature manipulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The left-anterior insular region activated more strongly than baseline only when the trust decision was preceded by touching a cold pack, and not a warm pack. In addition, greater activation within bilateral insula was identified during the decision phase followed by a cold manipulation, contrasted to warm. These results suggest that the insula may be a key shared neural substrate that mediates the influence of temperature on trust processes.

Social cognition is the scientific study of the cognitive events underlying social thought and attitudes. Currently, the field's prevailing theoretical perspectives are the traditional schema view and embodied cognition theories. Despite important differences, these perspectives share the seemingly uncontroversial notion that people interpret and evaluate a given social stimulus using knowledge about similar stimuli. However, research in cognitive linguistics (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) suggests that people construe the world in large part through conceptual metaphors, which enable them to understand abstract concepts using knowledge of superficially dissimilar, typically more concrete concepts. Drawing on these perspectives, we propose that social cognition can and should be enriched by an explicit recognition that conceptual metaphor is a unique cognitive mechanism that shapes social thought and attitudes. To advance this metaphor-enriched perspective, we introduce the metaphoric transfer strategy as a means of empirically assessing whether metaphors influence social information processing in ways that are distinct from the operation of schemas alone. We then distinguish conceptual metaphor from embodied simulation--the mechanism posited by embodied cognition theories--and introduce the alternate source strategy as a means of empirically teasing apart these mechanisms. Throughout, we buttress our claims with empirical evidence of the influence of metaphors on a wide range of social psychological phenomena. We outline directions for future research on the strength and direction of metaphor use in social information processing. Finally, we mention specific benefits of a metaphor-enriched perspective for integrating and generating social cognitive research and for bridging social cognition with neighboring fields.

The role of emotion in moral judgment is currently a topic of much debate in moral psychology. One specific claim made by many researchers is that irrelevant feelings of disgust can amplify the severity of moral condemnation. Numerous researchers have found this effect, but there have also been several published failures to replicate it. Clarifying this issue would inform important theoretical debates among rival accounts of moral judgment. We meta-analyzed all available studies--published and unpublished--in which incidental disgust was manipulated prior to or concurrent with a moral judgment task (k = 50). We found evidence for a small amplification effect of disgust (d = 0.11), which is strongest for gustatory/olfactory modes of disgust induction. However, there is also some suggestion of publication bias in this literature, and when this is accounted for, the effect disappears entirely (d = -0.01). Moreover, prevalent confounds mean that the effect size that we estimate is best interpreted as an upper bound on the size of the amplification effect. On the basis of the results of this meta-analysis, we argue against strong claims about the causal role of affect in moral judgment and suggest a need for new, more rigorous research on this topic.

Abstract Metaphorical effects are commonly assumed to be unidirectional, running from concrete to abstract domains but not vice versa. Noting that metaphorical effects are often found to be bidirectional, we explore how they may be mediated and moderated according to the principles of knowledge accessibility and applicability. Using the example of "something smells fishy" (a metaphorical expression of social suspicion), 7 experiments tested for the behavioral effects of fishy smells on social suspicion among English speakers, the reversed effects of suspicion on smell labeling and detection, and the underlying mechanism. Incidental exposure to fishy smells induced suspicion and undermined cooperation in trust-based economic exchanges in a trust game (Study 1) and a public goods game (Study 2). Socially induced suspicion enhanced the correct labeling of fishy smells, but not other smells (Studies 3a-3c), an effect that could be mediated by the accessibility and moderated by the applicability of metaphorically associated concepts (Studies 4-6). Suspicion also heightened detection sensitivity to low concentrations of fishy smells (Study 7). Bidirectionality, mediation, and moderation of metaphorical effects have important theoretical implications for integrating known wisdom from social cognition with new insights into the embodied and metaphorical nature of human thinking. These findings also highlight the need for exploring the cultural variability and origin of metaphorical knowledge. (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

Psychol Sci. 2010 Mar;21(3):381-3. doi: 10.1177/0956797610361426. Epub 2010 Feb 4.

It is striking that prosocial people are considered "sweet" (e.g., "she's a sweetie") because they are unlikely to differentially taste this way. These metaphors aid communication, but theories of conceptual metaphor and embodiment led us to hypothesize that they can be used to derive novel insights about personality processes. Five studies converged on this idea. Study 1 revealed that people believed strangers who liked sweet foods (e.g., candy) were also higher in agreeableness. Studies 2 and 3 showed that individual differences in the preference for sweet foods predicted prosocial personalities, prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors. Studies 4 and 5 used experimental designs and showed that momentarily savoring a sweet food (vs. a nonsweet food or no food) increased participants' self-reports of agreeableness and helping behavior. The results reveal that an embodied metaphor approach provides a complementary but unique perspective to traditional trait views of personality.

From the field of embodied cognition, previous studies have reported evidence of metaphorical mapping of emotion concepts onto a vertical spatial axis. Most of the work on this topic has used visual words as the typical experimental stimuli. However, to our knowledge, no previous study has examined the association between affect and vertical space using a cross-modal procedure. The current research is a first step toward the study of the metaphorical mapping of emotions onto vertical space by means of an auditory to visual cross-modal paradigm. In the present study, we examined whether auditory words with an emotional valence can interact with the vertical visual space according to a ositive-up/negative-down embodied metaphor. The general method consisted in the presentation of a spoken word denoting a positive/negative emotion prior to the spatial localization of a visual target in an upper or lower position. In Experiment 1, the spoken words were passively heard by the participants and no reliable interaction between emotion concepts and bodily simulated space was found. In contrast, Experiment 2 required more active listening of the auditory stimuli. A metaphorical mapping of affect and space was evident but limited to the participants engaged in an emotion-focused task. Our results suggest that the association of affective valence and vertical space is not activated automatically during speech processing since an explicit semantic and/or emotional evaluation of the emotionally valenced stimuli was necessary to obtain an embodied effect. The results are discussed within the framework of the embodiment hypothesis.

We consider the second-person or interactive approach to social understanding, conceived as an understanding of intentional relations. We identify five forms of second-person information self-directedness, contingency, reciprocity, affective engagement, and shared intentions that occur only in interactions. We assess the extent to which these forms of information are available to observers of interactions as well as to the participants of an interaction and conclude that whereas observers may gain some second-person information, interactive participants have a privileged position. We also ask whether these forms of second-person information can deliver social understanding in terms of the understanding of intentional relations that are descriptive of persons. We argue that whereas none of these forms alone is sufficient for understanding intentional relations, they all play an important role in the developmental processes that enable the construction of social understanding. Therefore, the second-person approach, understood as theorizing how second-person information available in interactions is used in the development of social understanding, is a critically important approach to a full theory of social understanding.

react-text: 437 It is unclear whether embodied-cognition effects are caused by the activation of cultural-linguistic metaphors, or whether these metaphors stem from preverbal mechanisms that directly affect both language and behavior. Therefore, we conducted a study wherein 62 Israeli participants ate sweet or spicy snacks and performed a social judgment task. Preverbal mechanisms assign positive hedonic... /react-text react-text: 438 /react-text [Show full abstract]

78 Goals contain embodied and metaphorical information. 78 Concept of achievement may become scaffolded onto simple forward movement. 78 Visual cues of forward movement increased implicit positivity toward achievement. 78 Visual cues of forward movement increased word puzzle performance.

Most human cognition occurs outside conscious awareness or conscious control. Some of these implicit processes influence social perception, judgment and action. The past 15 years of research in implicit social cognition can be characterized as the Age of Measurement because of a proliferation of measurement methods and research evidence demonstrating their practical value for predicting human behavior. Implicit measures assess constructs that are distinct, but related, to self-report assessments, and predict variation in behavior that is not accounted for by those explicit measures. The present state of knowledge provides a foundation for the next age of implicit social cognition: clarification of the mechanisms underlying implicit measurement and how the measured constructs influence behavior.

Embodiment theories predict that activating conceptual knowledge about emotions can be accompanied by re-experiencing bodily states, since simulations of sensory, motor, and introspective experiences form the foundation of conceptual representations of emotion. In the present study, we examine whether the activation of the specific emotion concepts of pride and disappointment are embodied in the sense that they are accompanied by changes in posture. Participants generated words associated with pride and disappointment while posture height was measured. Results show that during the generation of disappointment words participants decreased their posture height more than when participants generated pride words. This finding suggests that the activation of conceptual knowledge about disappointment can lead to a spontaneous expression of the associated body posture. In contrast to posture changes along the vertical axis, movement along the horizontal axis was not influenced by concept activation. In addition to bodily simulation the data also indicated introspective simulation, since feelings of disappointment increased after generating disappointment words. The current study provides the first evidence for the claim that the activation of conceptual knowledge about emotion can instantiate spontaneous simulations at a behavioral level. Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

78 Three studies demonstrate a bi-directional association between religion and cleanliness. 78 Religion primes increase accessibility of cleaning-related concepts (Study 1). 78 Religion primes enhance value of cleaning products, indicating cleanliness goal (Study 2). 78 Clean prime enhances value of religious beliefs (Study 3), indicating a religious goal.

A growing body of evidence suggests that certain facial expressions and postures are associated with emotional and motivational responses. This review discusses behavioral, neuroscientific, and cognitive research connecting these bodily movements with emotive responses. General bodily feedback theories of emotion have suggested that manipulated facial expressions and postures influence emotive reactions to stimuli as well as physiological responses such as heart rate, skin conductance, and the temperature of blood entering the brain. More recent evidence suggests that manipulated bodily states influence prefrontal cortical activation and amygdala activation. Even further evidence has suggested that manipulated bodily states influence cognitive processes, such as the speed at which individuals read emotional content, the speed at which they classify information as emotional, and the extent to which they determine emotional information as threatening. Bodily feedback theories may also suggest clinical applications. Bodily feedback theories of emotion therefore have generated research showing that bodily expressions play a pivotal role in our emotive experiences. WIREs Cogn Sci 2015, 6:461 473. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1370 <p>For further resources related to this article, please visit the

[Abstract unavailable]

Disgust is an emotional response that helps to maintain and protect physical and spiritual purity by signaling contamination and motivating the restoration of personal cleanliness. In the present research we predicted that disgust may be elicited by contact with outgroup religious beliefs, as these beliefs pose a threat to spiritual purity. Two experiments tested this prediction using a repeated taste-test paradigm in which participants tasted and rated a drink before and after copying a passage from an outgroup religion. In Experiment 1, Christian participants showed increased disgust after writing a passage from the Qur'an or Richard Dawkins' Highlights? A taste-test paradigm is used to measure disgust after writing a religious passage. ? Disgust is elicited after writing an outgroup–but not ingroup–religious passage. ? Hand washing after writing the passage eliminates disgust to outgroup religion.

Abstract The authors explore whether moral disgust is an elaboration of a food rejection system. According to the principle of preadaptation, a system that evolves for one purpose is later used for another purpose. From this viewpoint, disgust originates in the mammalian bitter taste rejection system, which directly activates a disgust output system. This primal route (e.g., bitter and some other tastes) evokes only the output program, without a disgust evaluation phase. During human evolution, the disgust output system was harnessed to a disgust evaluation system that responded not to simple sensory inputs (such as bitter tastes) but to more cognitively elaborated appraisals (e.g., a cockroach). Initially, the evaluation system was a food rejection system that rejected potential foods on the basis of their nature or perceived origin. This was the first "true disgust," because it engaged this evaluation system. Separately, the authors present a possible, three-layer scheme of disgust analysis, in which there are three pathways through which an elicitor could activate the disgust output program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Abstract It is proposed that 3 emotions--contempt, anger, and disgust--are typically elicited, across cultures, by violations of 3 moral codes proposed by R. A. Shweder and his colleagues (R. A. Shweder, N. C. Much, M. Mahapatra, & L. Park, 1997). The proposed alignment links anger to autonomy (individual rights violations), contempt to community (violation of communal codes including hierarchy), and disgust to divinity (violations of purity-sanctity). This is the CAD triad hypothesis. Students in the United States and Japan were presented with descriptions of situations that involve 1 of the types of moral violations and asked to assign either an appropriate facial expression (from a set of 6) or an appropriate word (contempt, anger, disgust, or their translations). Results generally supported the CAD triad hypothesis. Results were further confirmed by analysis of facial expressions actually made by Americans to the descriptions of these situations.

How does our brain organize knowledge ? Traditional theories assume that our knowledge is represented abstractly in an amodal conceptual network of formal logic symbols. The theory of embodied challenges this view and argues that conceptual representations that constitute our knowledge are grounded in sensory and motor experiences. We tested this hypothesis by examining how the concept of social coordination is grounded metaphorically in the tactile sensation of roughness. Participants experienced rough or smooth touch before being asked to judge an ambiguous social interaction. Results revealed that rough touch made social interactions appear more difficult and adversarial, consistent with the rough metaphor. This impact of tactile cues on social impressions was accompanied by a network including primary and secondary somatosensory cortices, amygdala, hippocampus and inferior prefrontal cortex. Thus, the roughness of tactile stimulation affected metaphor-relevant (but not metaphor-irrelevant) behavioral and neural responses. Receiving touch from a rough object seems to trigger the application of associated ontological concepts (or scaffolds) even for unrelated people and situations (but not to unrelated or more general feelings). Since this priming was based on somatosensory brain areas, our results provide support for the theory that sensorimotor grounding is intrinsic to cognitive processes.

The theory of embodied cognition claims that knowledge is represented in modal systems derived from perception. Recent behavioral studies found evidence for this hypothesis, for example, by linking moral purity with physical cleansing (the Macbeth effect). Neurophysiological approaches provided further support by showing an involvement of sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors. However, the exact role of this brain region for embodied cognitions remains to be cleared. Here we demonstrate that the involvement of the sensorimotor cortex for the embodied metaphor of moral-purity is somatotopically organized. Participants enacted in scenarios where they had to perform immoral or moral acts either with their mouths or their hands. Results showed that mouthwash products were particularly desirable after lying in a voice mail and hand wash products were particularly desirable after writing a lie, thus demonstrating that the moral-purity metaphor is specific to the sensorimotor modality involved in earlier immoral behavior. FMRI results of this interaction showed activation in sensorimotor cortices during the evaluation phase that was somatotopically organized with respect to preceding lying in a voice mail (mouth-area) or in a written note (hand-area). Thus, the results provide evidence for a central role of the sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors.

(2017). Disgust as embodied loss aversion. European Review of Social Psychology: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 50-94. doi: 10.1080/10463283.2016.1259844

ABSTRACT Theories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated ( Experiment 1 ) or after physically cleansing themselves after experiencing disgust ( Experiment 2 ), participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleanliness manipulation. The findings support the idea that moral judgment can be driven by intuitive processes, rather than deliberate reasoning. One of those intuitions appears to be physical purity, because it has a strong connection to moral purity.

Theoretical models and correlational research suggest that anger and disgust play different roles in moral judgment. Anger is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against persons, such as battery and unfairness, and disgust is theorized to underlie reactions to crimes against nature, such as sexual transgressions and cannibalism. To date, however, it has not been shown that induction of these two emotions has divergent effects. In this experiment we show divergent effects of anger and disgust. We use sounds to elicit anger and disgust, and participants are then asked to consider moral vignettes. As compared to disgust and control condition, anger increases severity of judgments about crimes against persons, and disgust increases severity of judgments about crimes against nature, but not conversely.

78 Restrained eating is moralized among women and embodied in a sense of cleanliness. 78 Overeating increased women's desire for physical cleanliness. 78 Moral emotions fully mediated the effect of overeating on desire for cleanliness.

ABSTRACT Three studies examined automatic associations between words with moral and immoral meanings and the colors black and white. The speed of color naming in a Stroop task was faster when words in black concerned immorality (e.g., greed), rather than morality, and when words in white concerned morality (e.g., honesty), rather than immorality. In addition, priming immorality by having participants hand-copy an unethical statement speeded identification of words in the black font. Making immorality salient in this way also increased the moral Stroop effect among participants who had not previously shown it. In the final study, participants also rated consumer products. Moral meanings interfered with color naming most strongly among those participants who rated personal cleaning products as especially desirable. The moderation of the moral Stroop effect by individual differences in concerns about personal cleanliness suggests that ideas about purity and pollution are central to seeing morality in black and white.

Unfair treatment can activate strong negative emotions among victims and third parties. Less is known about other innate and evolutionary-based reactions to unfairness, such as those that manifest themselves through our senses. In three experiments, we found that interpersonally unfair treatment at work, defined as treatment that violates an individual's sense of dignity and respect, triggered disgust emotions over and above anger which subsequently related to stronger taste and smell reactions to gustatory and olfactory stimuli. This effect was observed for pleasant and unpleasant tasting products, for agreeable and malodorous scents, and among both mistreatment victims and third parties. Our findings suggest that violations of dignity and respect can trigger an evolutionary based reaction that activates a human alarm system, warning individuals of impending threats even when no oral threat is imminent. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

78 We examine how facial expressions influence perceptual judgment of facial lightness. 78 We predict people will judge smiling faces as brighter than frowning faces. 78 We test this hypothesis using choice and absolute judgment paradigm with schematic and real faces.

Although evidence has suggested that coordinated action enhances rapport and fosters cooperation, the possibility that it might also influence the ability to pursue joint goals has yet to be demonstrated. We show that rocking in synchrony enhanced individuals’ perceptual sensitivity to the motion of other entities and thereby increased their success in a subsequent joint-action task that required the ability to dynamically detect and respond appropriately to a partner’s movements. These findings support the view that in addition to fostering social cohesion, synchrony hones the abilities that allow individuals to functionally direct their cooperative motives.

Temperature clemency AgeGenderResponse styleGDP per capita

"Warmth" is the most powerful personality trait in social judgment, and attachment theorists have stressed the importance of warm physical contact with caregivers during infancy for healthy relationships in adulthood. Intriguingly, recent research in humans points to the involvement of the insula in the processing of both physical temperature and interpersonal warmth (trust) information. Accordingly, we hypothesized that experiences of physical warmth (or coldness) would increase feelings of interpersonal warmth (or coldness), without the person's awareness of this influence. In study 1, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a "warmer" personality (generous, caring); in study 2, participants holding a hot (versus cold) therapeutic pad were more likely to choose a gift for a friend instead of for themselves.

The emerging viewpoint of embodied cognition holds that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body interactions with the world. This position actually houses a number of distinct claims, some of which are more controversial than others. This paper distinguishes and evaluates the following six claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) offline cognition is body based. Of these, the first three and the fifth appear to be at least partially true, and their usefulness is best evaluated in terms of the range of their applicability. The fourth claim, I argue, is deeply problematic. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, but it may in fact be the best documented and most powerful of the six claims.

Recent research on the “embodiment of emotion” implies that experiencing an emotion may involve perceptual, somatovisceral, and motor feedback aspects. For example, manipulations of facial expression and posture appear to induce emotional states and influence how affective information is processed. The present study investigates whether performance monitoring, a cognitive process known to be under heavy control of the dopaminergic system, is modulated by induced facial expressions. In particular, we focused on the error-related negativity, an electrophysiological correlate of performance monitoring. During a choice reaction task, participants held a Chinese chop stick either horizontally between the teeth (“smile” condition) or, in different runs, vertically (“no smile”) with the upper lip. In a third control condition, no chop stick was used (“no stick”). It could be shown on a separate sample that the facial feedback procedure is feasible to induce mild changes in positive affect. In the ERP sample, the smile condition, hypothesized to lead to an increase in dopaminergic activity, was associated with a decrease of ERN amplitude relative to “no smile” and “no stick” conditions. Embodying emotions by induced facial expressions leads to a changes in the neural correlates of error detection. We suggest that this is due to the joint influence of the dopaminergic system on positive affect and performance monitoring.

Many superstitious practices entail the belief that good or bad luck can be "washed away." Consistent with this belief, participants who recalled (Experiment 1) or experienced (Experiment 2) an episode of bad luck were more willing to take risk after having as opposed to not having washed their hands, whereas participants who recalled or experienced an episode of good luck were less willing to take risk after having as opposed to not having washed their hands. Thus, the psychological effects of physical cleansings extend beyond the domain of moral judgment and are independent of people's motivation: incidental washing not only removes undesirable traces of the past (such as bad luck) but also desirable ones (such as good luck), which people would rather preserve.

Abstract Does the cue of money lead to selfish, greedy, exploitative behaviors or to fairness, exchange, and reciprocity? We found evidence for both, suggesting that people have both sets of meaningful associations, which can be differentially activated by exposure to clean versus dirty money. In a field experiment at a farmers' market, vendors who handled dirty money subsequently cheated customers, whereas those who handled clean money gave fair value (Experiment 1). In laboratory studies with economic games, participants who had previously handled and counted dirty money tended toward selfish, unfair practices-unlike those who had counted clean money or dirty paper, both of which led to fairness and reciprocity. These patterns were found with the trust game (Experiment 2), the prisoner's dilemma (Experiment 4), the ultimatum game (Experiment 5), and the dictator game (Experiment 6). Cognitive measures indicated that exposure to dirty money lowered moral standards (Experiment 3) and reduced positive attitudes toward fairness and reciprocity (Experiments 6-7), whereas exposure to clean money had the opposite effects. Thus, people apparently have 2 contradictory sets of associations (including behavioral tendencies) to money, which is a complex, powerful, and ubiquitous aspect of human social life and cultural organization. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved

Abstract Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be understood as a social interaction disorder. This makes the emerging "second-person approach" to social cognition a more promising framework for studying ASD than classical approaches focusing on mindreading capacities in detached, observer-based arrangements. According to the second-person approach, embodied, perceptual, and embedded or interactive capabilities are also required for understanding others, and these are hypothesized to be compromised in ASD. We therefore recorded the dynamics of real-time sensorimotor interaction in pairs of control participants and participants with High-Functioning Autism (HFA), using the minimalistic human-computer interface paradigm known as "perceptual crossing" (PC). We investigated whether HFA is associated with impaired detection of social contingency, i.e., a reduced sensitivity to the other's responsiveness to one's own behavior. Surprisingly, our analysis reveals that, at least under the conditions of this highly simplified, computer-mediated, embodied form of social interaction, people with HFA perform equally well as controls. This finding supports the increasing use of virtual reality interfaces for helping people with ASD to better compensate for their social disabilities. Further dynamical analyses are necessary for a better understanding of the mechanisms that are leading to the somewhat surprising results here obtained.

Inconsistency among findings in the embodied cognition literature suggests a need for theoretical boundary conditions. The current research proposes that conscious attention of a bodily state can moderate its influence on social judgment. Three studies tested this possibility in the case of the demonstrated effect of weight sensations on judgments of an abstract idea's importance. Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants rated a topic as more important when holding a moderately heavy, compared with light, clipboard. However, when the clipboard was very heavy, participants rated the survey topic as less important compared with when the clipboard was moderately heavy. The differences in importance ratings were not caused by derogation of the topic or the activation of a different metaphor. In Study 3, the importance rating difference between light and moderately heavy clipboards was eliminated by explicitly drawing perceiver's attention to the clipboard's weight. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Past research has shown that a physical experience can influence metaphorically linked psychological judgment. However, the underlying mechanisms have not been formally tested. This article examines the role of semantic activations underlying such influences, focusing on the effects of a ubiquitous physical experience—“carrying weight”—on consumers’ judgment of importance. Five experiments provide converging evidence that semantic activation is the primary underlying process for the effect. Specifically, physically carrying a load is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for processing the concept of importance. The effect is fully mediated by semantic activation of related weight concepts. Moreover, processing the concept of importance does not necessarily influence the physical experience of carrying weight. An affective state such as mental stress (psychological load), however, does have a reciprocal effect on the physical experience of carrying weight, indicating that there might be different pathways between weight experience and its metaphorically linked concepts.

Background music is often used in ads as a means of persuasion. Previous research has studied the effect of music in advertising using neutral or uncontroversial products. The aim of the studies reported here was to examine the effect of music on the perception of products promoting unethical behavior. Each of the series of three studies described examined the effect of background music on recall and evaluation of a fictive radio ad promoting different types of cheating. The studies consider the effect of involvement, attitudes, priming and presentation context, and music's valence. In all the studies, background music led to reduced recall of information. Positive-valence music reduced awareness of the unethical message, and increased acceptance of the product. The results demonstrate the power of music to manipulate and bias moral judgment. (Contains 4 tables and 4 figures.)