Greg Woodin

This consensus paper synthesizes the work and views of researchers in the field, discussing current perspectives on theoretical and methodological issues, and recommendations for future research. Overall, we argue that abstract concepts should be studied in a more nuanced way that takes into account their complexity and diversity, which should permit us a fuller, more holistic understanding of abstract cognition.

We analysed more than 1.7 million occurrences of numbers between 0 and a billion in the British National Corpus, finding that four main factors affect number frequency: magnitude, roundness, cultural salience, and register. In writing, we find that the numbers 1–9 are mostly represented by number words (e.g., ‘three’), 10–999,999 are mostly represented by numerals (e.g., ‘14’), and 1 million–1 billion are mostly represented by a mix of numerals and number words (e.g., ‘8 million’).

We conducted two experiments (N = 300 per experiment) where participants answered questions about line graphs depicting good and bad quantities. Our results suggest that conceptual metaphors matter for the interpretation of line graphs. However, designers of line graphs are warned against subverting graphical convention to align with conceptual metaphors.

We argue that it is a misconception that languages generally become more arbitrary over time. Although many words and signs certainly do become less iconic, all evidence suggests that languages do not.

Using the TV News Archive, we showed that, generally, the hands of gesturers mirror the size-based frame implied by concurrent speech (e.g., a closed-hand gesture for the phrase 'tiny number'). This paper is the first large-scale, quantitative demonstration that the TV News Archive can provide a unique window into metaphorical thought.

In this thesis, I propose three criteria for identifying whether a speaker is thinking metaphorically - gesture co-occurrence, gestural fit and gestural effort - and I investigate these criteria empirically using the TV News Archive.

In a task where participants placed words in space, participants preferred the vertical axis for quantity words and valence words, and the horizontal axis for numerals and time words. Across all tasks, participants tended to use specific axes (horizontal, vertical), rather than combining these two axes in diagonal responses. These results shed light on the spatial nature of abstract thought.