126 Agnes Petocz
integration can contribute by promoting a potentially fruitful unification of two difficult and
hitherto disconnected areas in psychology.
Peirce (1932) commented on the probable iconic and indexical aspects of language, and
Sapir (1959) followed him. More recently, theoretical and empirical work on conceptual
metaphor and on mappings across sounds and visual images presents evidence for the cross-
cultural salience and consistent patterns of metaphorical thinking (Gallagher, 2005; Gibbs,
1994, 2003; Hopkins, 2000; Johnson, 1987; Kövecses, 2005; Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980, 1999; Lakoff & Turner, 1989; Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001; Wheeler,
2005; Yu, 2003). According to the conceptual theory of metaphor, we understand the world
in metaphors which are basic, widespread, unconscious, systematic, deep-rooted and
conventional. So-called "abstract" things, such as time, life, emotions, relationships,
psychological processes, values (belonging to what is called the "target" domain) are typically
understood (not just spoken of) in terms of "source" domains, which are basic bodily
processes (e.g., body temperature, blood pressure, respiration), physical activities (e.g.,
eating), basic spatial orientations (up/down, right/left, front/back), and movement. For
example, we think of the mind as a container, the angry person as a pressurised container, a
relationship as a journey, happiness and success as up, sadness and failure as down, time as a
moving object or observer, and so on.
Kövecses (2005) has discussed extensions of work in this area which move beyond the
single focus on cross-cultural universals and explore also within-cultural, within-social and
within-individual variations. To give some examples, whereas English, Chinese and Zulu all
think of the angry person as a pressurised container, the English container is filled with hot
fluid, the Chinese with gas (or ch'i), and the Zulu with emotion substance in the heart. While
both Americans and Hungarians think of life as a journey, Americans most frequently think
of it as a precious gift, and then as a game, whereas Hungarians most frequently think of it as
a war or struggle, and then as a compromise. When we are conscious of ourselves as moving
forward spatially (as when we are on a train journey), we map our own experience onto time,
and think of time passing as a moving observer. But when we are stationary, we think of time
passing as an object that moves towards us (Boroditsky, 2000; Boroditsky & Ramscar, 2002;
Casasanto & Boroditsky, 2008).
In the field I discussed in the previous section, that of auditory warning design, it has
been claimed recently that metaphor is the path of the future. According to Edworthy &
Hellier (2006b), "Warnings as metaphors is the main growth area in the brave new world of
sound chips, but there are a great many issues to be resolved before clear guidance can be
given about which types of metaphors might be best for which types of application" (p. 201).
The research in conceptual metaphor offers some promising and intriguing material
concerning learning predispositions, associations, and the ability of users to draw upon these
associations when using their own cues to attach meanings to so-called abstract sounds. For
example, it addresses the question why some sound-concept mappings (e.g., increasing pitch
to represent increasing temperature) are consistently judged to be appropriate, whereas other
mappings (e.g., decreasing pitch to represent increasing size) elicit more variation in
judgments of appropriateness (Walker, 2002, 2007; cf. Gibbs, 1994). Yet, despite important
implications from this body of literature for the field of information representation, the
material on conceptual metaphor remains a relatively untapped resource.
The second area of interest, whose connection to the first is not generally recognised, is
that of nonconventional symbolic phenomena (included in category (2) in my earlier