Spatial Dimensions of Social Thought / / ed. by Thomas W. Schubert, Anne Maass.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• MitwirkendeR: Agostini, Maria De,; Brady, Nuala,; Chatterjee, Anjan,; Chokron, Sylvie,; Förster, Jens,; Hegarty, Peter,; Kazandjian, Seta,; Lemieux, Anthony F.,; Liberman, Nira,; Maass, Anne,; McManus, Chris,; Ouellet, Marc,; Román, Antonio,; Santiago, Julio,; Schnall, Simone,; Schubert, Thomas W.,; Seibt, Beate,; Suitner, Caterina,; Tversky, Barbara,; Vaid, Jyotsna,; Waldzus, Sven,
• HerausgeberIn: Maass, Anne,; Schubert, Thomas W.,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Applications of Cognitive Linguistics [ACL] , 18
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (353 p.)

Space provides the stage for our social lives - social thought evolved and developed in a constant interaction with space. The volume demonstrates how this has led to an astonishing intertwining of spatial and social thought. For the first time, research on language comprehension, metaphors, priming, spatial perception, face perception, art history and other fields is brought together to provide an integrative view. This overview confirms that often, metaphors reveal a deeper truth about how our mind uses spatial information to represent social concepts. Yet, the evidence also goes beyond this insight, showing for instance how flexible our mind operates with spatial metaphors, how the peculiarities of our bodies determine the way we assign meaning to space, and how the asymmetry of our brain influences spatial and face perception. Finally, it is revealed that also how we write language - from left to right or from right to left - shapes how we perceive, interpret, and produce horizontal movement and order. The evidence ranges from linguistics to social and spatial perception to neuropsychology, seamlessly integrating such diverse findings as speed in word comprehension, children's depictions of abstract concepts, estimates of the steepness of hills, and archival research on how often Homer Simpson is depicted left or right of Marge. The chapters in this book offer a topology of social cognition and explore the pivotal role language plays in creating links between spatial and social thought.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of contents -- List of Contributors -- Introduction: The interrelation of spatial and social cognition -- Section A. Spatial dimensions and social thought -- Spatial thought, social thought -- Flexible foundations of abstract thought: A review and a theory -- Estimates of spatial distance: A Construal Level Theory perspective -- Embodiment in affective space: Social influences on spatial perception -- More than a metaphor: How the understanding of power is grounded in experience -- Section B. Horizontal asymmetries and social thought -- Directional asymmetries in cognition: What is left to write about? -- Understanding spatial bias in face perception and memory -- Asymmetries in representational drawing: Alternatives to a laterality account -- Cultural and biological interaction in visuospatial organization -- Aesthetic asymmetries, spatial agency, and art history: A social psychological perspective -- Writing direction, agency and gender stereotyping: An embodied connection -- Who is the second (graphed) sex and why? The meaning of order in graphs of gender differences -- Index