The Metaphoric Mapping of Space and Brightness onto Number

Abstract

While many may not realize, metaphor is all around the world and is ever-present in how language is expressed. Lakoff and Johnson proposed the idea that much of the conventional language that people use to map concrete concepts onto abstract ideas (i.e. space onto number or time) is actually metaphoric in nature (Lakoff & Johnson, 2008). For instance, in the math classroom, addition is often expressed using the conceptual metaphor that UP IS MORE. Both children and adults use conventional expressions like “2 + 5 adds up to 7” or “27 is a higher number than 3” to connect physical space with abstract numbers. In as young as infancy, humans have some capabilities in mapping spatial-numeric metaphors, and contextual learning throughout childhood helps children to develop their ability to comprehend these metaphors. In this study, we use the framework of Starr et al. in order to explore how certain novel metaphors are comprehended and extended by young children. We found that, not only, do children have strong mappings of the spatial dimension of height towards number, but they were able to extend the novel metaphor of brightness at the same level as spatial metaphors. These findings were surprising as prior research has shown their to only be weak brightness-number metaphoric associations.