The effect of the brightness metaphor on memory

Abstract

Brightness-based metaphor effects on perception have been widely documented. For example, moral content makes perception brighter. But does moral content make a bright memory brighter? We tested the effect of the moral brightness metaphor on different cognitive processes (perception, working memory, and long-term memory), and extended evidence of the relationship between brightness and moral concepts to the relationship between brightness and positive concepts. Different samples of college students participated in five experiments. In all experiments, moral (immoral) and positive (negative) pictures of varying levels of brightness were presented, and then participants reconstructed the brightness of each picture using a keyboard to adjust the brightness of an picture. Together, the results of ANOVAs across experiments showed that the metaphorical effect of brightness played no role in perception or working memory, but there was a significant increase in brightness in long-term memory. These results support the non-unidirectionality of metaphor, and extend the conceptual metaphor theory and simulating sensorimotor metaphors theory by enhancing the effect of metaphor through the cognitive mechanism of long-term memory.