Wellington, New Zealand, is considered a windy city (twice as windy as Chicago). It is also a hilly city. Victoria University, where I spend my day, is on the top of one of those hills and while that means I have a wonderful view, there are times I despise the walk up from town. Particularly the last bit (the ‘final insult’ as I think of it), from where I can almost see my office.
New scientific approaches often rise with the availability of new methods, and can stall when those methods do not evolve further. New methods can be particularly influential if they allow a wide range of application without demanding a lot of resources. In the hands of creative graduate students, such methods can quickly turn into productive tools.
Are you sick of banner ads, commercials, and brand names depicted everywhere? You might think this way of advertising is pointless since it will not influence you anyway. However, psychological research has identified how branding hacks into your mind and how you can prevent this.
“Mental simulation”—interacting mentally with an object—is an important part of our daily interactions. We review literature that provides evidence that humans mentally simulate automatically in preparation for object interactions. We also discuss our research showing how simple object orientation can change mental simulation and thus purchase intention. This review should provide practitioners
People are special. Person perception is quite different from rock perception, for example. Geologists, those with a rock in their shoe, and pet rock owners aside, the perception of a rock is often merely the perception of a collection of lines and surfaces. Yet people are not simply collections of lines and surfaces.
Our language is filled with metaphors (Gibbs, 1994). We have “bright” ideas, try to stay “balanced”, and feel “close” to others, but sometimes feel “down”, have “dark” thoughts, and “explode” with rage. What is the purpose of such language?
You have likely experienced the phenomenon. Perhaps it occurred on the walk from the train after an exhausting day at the office. Or maybe you noticed it on the uphill trek to class while lugging a backpack stuffed with textbooks. That hill looming in front of you—surmountable most days and probably no more than a few degrees incline —right now looks more like Mount Everest. Likewise, the six-block walk from the train appears to stretch for miles. The way our surroundings look seems to change based on the state of our bodies.
Research has shown that physical experiences can influence metaphorically related judgments. For example, the experience of physical weight influences estimates of value and importance. Careful examination of existing evidence suggests that how much knowledge people have about a target of a judgment determines whether the experience of physical weight influences that judgment.
