ABSTRACT
How do we mentally represent and reason about domains for which little sensory information is available? One suggestion is that our understanding of abstract domains is intimately dependent on our understanding of richer, more experience-based domains (Boroditsky, 2000, 2001; Gentner et al., 2001; Gibbs, 1994; Holyoak & Thagard, 1995; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999). For example, people’s understanding of time appears to be dependent on spatial knowledge (Boroditsky, 2000; Boroditsky & Ramscar, 2002). Previous evidence suggests that there is an asymmetric relationship between the domains of space and time. Whereas spatial knowledge was found to be useful for reasoning about time, temporal knowledge did not facilitate spatial reasoning (Boroditsky, 2000).
