TY - JOUR TI - Are abstract words grounded in vertical space? DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3BV7JM5 PY - 2015 AB - The literature on embodied cognition poses as a formidable contender to the amodal view of the mind. The last ten years have resulted in a plethora of support for the embodiment/grounding of concrete language processing. However, the issue of abstract concepts has not been resolved. If it is true that abstract concepts are embodied or grounded, how does this coincide with the fact that abstract concepts refer to specific things in space like bodies. Therefore, this issue must be addressed to investigate the extent of the grounding of language processing. The present paper features two studies where participants view a word associated with either upward or downward space, followed by an identification task of a target letter which either matched the associated location of the word or not. It was predicted that spatial targets which match a presented word’s spatial association would result in reaction time interference. The results were found to be inconclusive. Methodological problems and future directions are presented and suggested. KW - Psychology KW - Philosophy of mind KW - Cognitive science LA - eng ER -