Mighty metaphors: Behavioral and ERP evidence that power shifts attention on a vertical dimension Kiki Zanolie a,⇑ , Saskia van Dantzig a,b , Inge Boot a , Jasper Wijnen c , Thomas W. Schubert d , Steffen R. Giessner a , Diane Pecher a a Erasmus University Rotterdam, Institute for Psychology, The Netherlands b Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research, The Netherlands c University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, The Netherlands d Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, Lisboa, Portugal article info Article history: Accepted 11 October 2011 Available online xxxx Keywords: Visual spatial attention Grounded cognition Embodied cognition Concept representation Abstract concepts Conceptual Metaphor Theory P1 N1 abstract Thinking about the abstract concept power may automatically activate the spatial up–down image schema (powerful up; powerless down) and consequently direct spatial attention to the image schema- congruent location. Participants indicated whether a word represented a powerful or powerless person (e.g. ‘king’ or ‘servant’). Following each decision, they identified a target at the top or bottom of the visual field. In Experiment 1 participants identified the target faster when their spatial position was congruent with the perceived power of the preceding word than when it was incongruent. In Experiment 2 ERPs showed a higher N1 amplitude for congruent spatial positions. These results support the view that attention is driven to the image schema congruent location of a power word. Thus, power is partially understood in terms of vertical space, which demonstrates that abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor processing. Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction A very important question within the domain of cognitive psy- chology is how we represent abstract concepts. In the grounded cognition framework, researchers have proposed that the mental representation of concepts involves the simulation of actual sen- sory-motor experiences (e.g., Barsalou, 1999, 2008a; Glenberg, 1997). On this account action, perception, and mental representa- tion share processing mechanisms. When someone represents a concept, previously stored information of the sensory-motor expe- rience is partially reactivated to form a simulation of this sensory- motor experience. There is ample evidence that concrete concepts are grounded in sensory-motor representations (Barsalou, 2008b). However, the question remains whether and how abstract con- cepts can be represented in a grounded fashion (Pecher, Boot, & Van Dantzig, 2011). For instance, how would abstract concepts such as power and love, that have far less direct reference in the physical world than concrete concepts such as apple or hammer, be grounded? A proposal is that metaphors play a role in the rep- resentation of abstract concepts. The idea that abstract concepts are represented by metaphors was described by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Gibbs, 1994; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999). According to this theory, metaphors provide grounding for abstract concepts by connecting them to more concrete representations. Evidence for this idea originates from metaphorical expressions. For example, the concept war may be used as a metaphor for the abstract concept argument, as in the sentence He attacked every weak point in my argument. By means of this metaphorical connection, the structure inherently present in a concrete concept (the source domain) is mapped onto the abstract concept (the target domain). The concrete concepts in turn take their structure from image schemas (e.g. Hampe & Grady, 2005; Johnson, 1987), which are dynamic patterns of mul- ti-modal activation that emerge from recurring perceptual and ac- tion experiences. Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) argue that metaphors are not merely a linguistic phenomenon but also serve a representational goal. Conceptual Metaphor Theory is not the only theory of how ab- stract concepts are grounded. Other accounts of abstract concepts have proposed that abstract concepts are represented by concrete situations and introspective experiences (Barsalou & Wiemer- Hastings, 2005) or by affective and linguistic information (Andrews, Vigliocco, & Vinson, 2009; Kousta, Vigliocco, Vinson, Andrews, & Del Campo, 2011). Whereas Conceptual Metaphor Theory assumes only basic image schemas as a way of grounding, 0278-2626/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2011.10.006 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Institute for Psychology, T13-08, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Fax: +31 10 4089009. E-mail address: zanolie@fsw.eur.nl (K. Zanolie). Brain and Cognition xxx (2011) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Brain and Cognition journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/b&c Please cite this article in press as: Zanolie, K., et al. Mighty metaphors: Behavioral and ERP evidence that power shifts attention on a vertical dimension. Brain and Cognition (2011), doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2011.10.006