Metaphors and Word Learning

When we speak about ideas with either positive or negative emotional valence, we havily make use of metaphors (Casasanto and de Bruin, 2019). After learning vocabulary flashcards positioned at specific locations, it aids students in learning the facts of new words with either positive or negative emotional valence. This finding was found in the authors' first experiment in which 'alien' words had strong valence. Their second experiment aimed to assess the strategic usage of mental metaphors to a larger sample of words. In this experiment, the 'alien' words were not emotionally laden but they were neutral. Consistent with the first experiment, the definitions of words were better remembered when they were assigned to metaphor-congruent locations. The final experiment aimed to study whether metaphor words were of the same magnitude as motor actions. There were two conditions, a good is up condition and a good is down condition. It was found that in the case of the words up and down motor actions, the metaphor congruency effect vanished (Casasanto and de Bruin, 2019). However, metaphor-congruent motor behaviors improved the learning of words.