The Influence of Event Valence and Emotional States on the Metaphorical Comprehension of Time

Narratives of contingency and practices of comparing in the emergence of German molecular genetics (1958-1968)

This article explores the emergence of molecular approaches in German genetic research during the 1958-1968 decade as a period of contingency and alternative possibilities. We introduce "Narratives of Contingency" as an analytical framework to examine how scientists construct a specific narrative - linking past experiences with expectations of future conditions - in order to outline and navigate pathway-decisions in the present. We apply this framework to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's developmental model of molecular genetics and illustrate how the stages he identifies - the direction of the field, institutional developments, and epistemological demarcations - were already central themes in the comparative practices underlying narratives of contingency in this early period. Narratives of contingency can thus serve as a systematic framework for analyzing the processes through which new scientific fields, institutions, and epistemic horizons emerge, and possibly also for identifying historically plausible fork moments or alternative pathways not taken.

Spice up the moment: The influence of spicy taste on people's metaphorical perspectives on time

Embodied cognition contends that sensorimotor experiences undergird cognitive processes. Three embodied cross-domain metaphorical mappings constitute quintessential illustrations: spatial navigation and orientation underpin the conceptualization of time and emotion and gustatory sensation underlies the formulation of emotion. Threading together these strands of insights, the present research consisted of three studies explored the potential influence of spicy taste on people's metaphorical perspectives on time. The results revealed a positive correlation between spicy taste and the ego-moving metaphor for time such that individuals who enjoyed spicy taste (Study 1) and who consumed spicy (vs. salty) snack (Study 2) exhibited a predilection for the ego-moving perspective when cognizing a temporally ambiguous event. Because both spicy taste and the ego-moving metaphor are associated with anger and approach motivation, the latter two were postulated to be related to the novel taste-time relationship. Corroborative evidence for the hypothesis was found, which indicated that spicy (vs. salty) intake elicited significantly stronger anger toward and significantly greater approach-motivated perception of a rescheduled temporal event (Study 3). Taken together, the current findings demonstrate that spicy taste may play a role in people's perspectives on the movement of events in time and highlight the involved embodied interrelation between language, emotion, and cognition.

To each their own: a review of individual differences and metaphorical perspectives on time

How do people talk-and potentially think-about abstract concepts? Supported by abundant linguistic evidence, Conceptual Metaphor Theory posits that people draw upon concrete concepts to structure abstract ones via metaphorical connections. Often, the source domain for a metaphor draws upon embodied physical experience, as in the time is space system, whereby representations in the domain of time are thought to arise from experiences of navigating through, orienting within, and observing motion in space. In recent years, psychological evidence has suggested that the connections between space and time are indeed conceptual; however, many gaps in our understanding of the workings of metaphor remain. Notably, until recently, the unique variations in the ways in which people experience metaphor have been largely overlooked, with much research falling prey to what Dąbrowska has identified as one of the 'deadly sins' of cognitive linguistics: to ignore individual differences. By focusing on two widely studied metaphors for time, Moving Time and Moving Ego, this review article shines a spotlight on the varied ways in which people draw on their embodied and enculturated experiences, along with 'human experience' on an individual level and the contexts within which they use metaphor. In doing so, it highlights the importance for metaphoric conceptualization of variation across languages, across contexts, and across individuals, suggesting that while the use and interpretation of metaphor may begin with cross-domain connections, they are but part of the story.

It's owl time!: the relationship between chronotype and resolution of temporal ambiguity

When adducing temporal relationship, we can either adopt the perspective of conceiving ourselves as moving toward the future (called Moving Ego perspective), or we can adopt the perspective of the future time coming toward us (called Moving Time perspective). Previous research has shown that the adoption of these two types of temporal perspectives is highly flexible, influenced by a complex of factors. However, it remains largely unknown whether chronotype, characterized by one's tendency to conduct activities and sleep at a particular time during the day-night cycle, is correlated to metaphorical perspectives of time. Some evidence suggests a possible link between procrastination and the Moving Ego perspective. An additional line of research has shown that the evening chronotype is significantly associated with procrastination. Integrating these various lines of research led us to hypothesize that having a preference for eveningness may predispose a person toward adopting the ego-moving perspective. We tested this hypothesis and found robust support for this association in an online sample of Chinese speakers (N = 284). We found that participants who favor the ego-moving representation exhibited a high level of eveningness. This work suggests that individual differences in circadian preference play a unique role in the resolution of temporal ambiguity.

Keeping in Touch with Mental Health: The Orienting Reflex and Behavioral Outcomes from Calatonia

Physical and psychological therapy based on touch has been gradually integrated into broader mental health settings in the past two decades, evolving from a variety of psychodynamic, neurobiological and trauma-based approaches, as well as Eastern and spiritual philosophies and other integrative and converging systems. Nevertheless, with the exception of a limited number of well-known massage therapy techniques, only a few structured protocols of touch therapy have been standardized and researched to date. This article describes a well-defined protocol of touch therapy in the context of psychotherapy-the Calatonia technique-which engages the orienting reflex. The orienting reflex hypothesis is explored here as one of the elements of this technique that helps to decrease states of hypervigilance and chronic startle reactivity (startle and defensive reflexes) and restore positive motivational and appetitive states.