Neural Constraints on Temporal-Spatial Metaphors

Abstract

Metaphor theory proposes that our understanding of high-level concepts arises through metaphorical construction and extension. One class of metaphors that has been studied extensively within metaphor theory is TIME IS SPACE. The cross-cultural existence of this metaphor has traditionally been interpreted as being a result of our common embodied experiences in the world. In addition to these experiential mechanisms, we examine data from human neuroimaging, neuropsychology and monkey physiology demonstrating that the parietal cortex houses circuitry crucial for both temporal and spatial representations to argue that these neural structures create a predisposition towards a neural mapping between the domains of time and space, and thus provide a brain-based constraint on the universal TIME IS SPACE metaphor. These considerations further suggest that cultural artifacts that best fit the pre-existing structures of the brain are most easily learned, and are therefore most likely to be passed on to future generations.