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Remember Hard But Think Softly: Metaphorical Effects of Hardness/Softness on Cognitive Functions.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies have found that bodily stimulation, such as hardness biases social judgment and evaluation via metaphorical association; however, it remains unclear whether bodily stimulation also affects cognitive functions, such as memory and creativity. The current study used metaphorical associations between "hard" and "rigid" and between "soft" and "flexible" in Chinese, to investigate whether the experience of hardness affects cognitive functions whose performance depends prospectively on rigidity (memory) and flexibility (creativity). In Experiment 1, we found that Chinese-speaking participants performed better at recalling previously memorized words while sitting on a hard-surface stool (the hard condition) than a cushioned one (the soft condition). In Experiment 2, participants sitting on a cushioned stool outperformed those sitting on a hard-surface stool on a Chinese riddle task, which required creative/flexible thinking, but not on an analogical reasoning task, which required both rigid and flexible thinking. The results suggest the hardness experience affects cognitive functions that are metaphorically associated with rigidity or flexibility. They support the embodiment proposition that cognitive functions and representations can be grounded in bodily states via metaphorical associations.

SUBMITTER: Xie J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5018472 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Remember Hard But Think Softly: Metaphorical Effects of Hardness/Softness on Cognitive Functions.

Xie Jiushu J Lu Zhi Z Wang Ruiming R Cai Zhenguang G ZG

Frontiers in psychology 20160912

Previous studies have found that bodily stimulation, such as hardness biases social judgment and evaluation via metaphorical association; however, it remains unclear whether bodily stimulation also affects cognitive functions, such as memory and creativity. The current study used metaphorical associations between "hard" and "rigid" and between "soft" and "flexible" in Chinese, to investigate whether the experience of hardness affects cognitive functions whose performance depends prospectively on ...[more]

PMID: 27672373

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Project description:Quantitative understanding of reactivity and stability for a chemical species is fundamental to chemistry. The concept has undergone many changes and additions throughout the history of chemistry, stemming from the ideas such as Lewis acids and bases. For a given complexing ligand (Lewis base) and a group of isovalent metal cations (Lewis acids), the stability constants of metal-ligand (ML) complexes can simply correlate to the known properties of metal ions [ionic radii (r M n+ ), Gibbs free energy of formation (ΔG°f,M n+ ), and solvation energy (ΔG°s,M n+ )] by 2.303RT log K ML = (α*MLΔG°f,M n+ - β*ML r M n+ + γ*MLΔG°s,M n+ - δ*ML), where the coefficients (α*ML, β*ML, γ*ML, and intercept δ*ML) are determined by fitting the equation to the existing experimental data. Coefficients β*ML and γ*ML have the same sign and are in a linear relationship through the origin. Gibbs free energies of formation of cations (ΔG°f,M n+ ) are found to be natural indices for the softness or hardness of metal cations, with positive values corresponding to soft acids and negative values to hard acids. The coefficient α*ML is an index for the softness or hardness of a complexing ligand. Proton (H+) with the softness index of zero is a unique acid that has strong interactions with both soft and hard bases. The stability energy resulting from the acid-base interactions is determined by the term α*MLΔG°f,M n+ ; a positive product of α*ML and ΔG°f,M n+ indicates that the acid-base interaction between the metal cation and the complexing ligand stabilizes the complex. The terms β*ML r M n+ and γ*MLΔG°s,M n+ , which are related to ionic radii of metal cations, represent the steric and solvation effects of the cations. The new softness indices proposed here will help to understand the interactions of ligands (Lewis bases) with metal cations (Lewis acids) and provide guidelines for engineering materials with desired chemical reactivity and selectivity. The new correlation can also enhance our ability for predicting the speciation, mobility, and toxicity of heavy metals in the earth environments and biological systems.

Project description:A microarray analysis of wheat grain hardness For both the Heron and Falcon NIL, whole wheat heads were harvested at 6, 15 and 25 days post anthesis (DPA) from glass house grown material and stored at -80 OC. For the other wheat cultivars analysed, heads at approximately 9-10 DPA were used. Eight to ten developing caryopses at the same age and morphological stage of development were selected from a head to represent a sample. Seed collected from a different head represented a replicate sample. Total RNA was isolated from the whole seed following the method of Higgins et al. (1976) with the following modification to remove starch. After the lithium chloride precipitation, the RNA pellet was resuspended in 250 ?l water. Then 3.5 ?l of 3 M sodium acetate (pH 5.3) and 125 ?l ethanol were added and the sample was centrifuged for 10 minutes at 4 OC. The supernatant was transferred to a fresh tube and the RNA was ethanol-precipitated by the addition of 21.5 ?l of 3 M sodium acetate (pH 5.3) and 375 ?l ethanol. The recovery of RNA varied from 0.06-0.5 ?g RNA per mg of tissue and this was dependent on the developmental stage of the seeds used for extraction of the RNA. For the labelling procedure, 50 ?g of total RNA was used for both the Cy3 and Cy5 dyes (Amersham Pharmacia, UK), following the two-step labelling method of Schenk et al. (2000). The Cy3 control (hard wheat) and Cy5 sample (soft wheat) were swapped among the replicate experiments to minimise any bias in cDNA incorporation and photo-bleaching of the fluorescent dyes. The pre-hybridisation of the microarray slides, hybridisation of the target cDNA and subsequent washing of the slides to remove unbound target was performed as per the supplied protocol for the CMT-GAPSTM coated microscope slides (Corning USA). The slides were scanned with a GenePix 4000A microarray scanner (Axon Instruments, Union, CA, USA). The features were analysed using the GenePix Pro 4 software and unsatisfactorily segmented features were either manually adjusted or discarded to ensure the integrity of the data obtained.

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Remember Hard But Think Softly: Metaphorical Effects of Hardness/Softness on Cognitive Functions.

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Remember Hard But Think Softly: Metaphorical Effects of Hardness/Softness on Cognitive Functions.

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