Space as a mental toolbox in the representation of meaning

The experience of meaning has been found to be mapped onto spatial proximity whereby coherent––in contrast to incoherent––elements in a set are mentally represented as closer together in physical space. In a series of 4 experiments, we show that spatial representation of coherence is malleable and can employ other meaningful concrete dimensions of space that are made salient. When given task instructions cueing verticality, participants represented coherence in the upper vertical location when making judgements about the logical validity of realistic (Experiments 1 & 4) and unrealistic syllogistic scenarios (Experiment 3). When the task instruction made the spatial proximity between the stimuli materials and the participant salient (subjective proximity), participants represented coherence as spatially close to themselves (Experiment 2). We also found that being accurate in judging the validity of syllogisms was associated with representing coherence in the upper visual field or close to oneself. Overall, our findings show that identifying semantic links between an abstract concept and a given spatial dimension involves using that dimension to create spatial metaphoric mappings of the concept.