Space provides the stage for our social lives - social thought evolved and developed in a
constant interaction with space. The volume demonstrates how this has led to an astonishing
intertwining of spatial and social thought. For the first time research on language
comprehension metaphors priming spatial perception face perception art history and other
fields is brought together to provide an integrative view. This overview confirms that often
metaphors reveal a deeper truth about how our mind uses spatial information to represent social
concepts. Yet the evidence also goes beyond this insight showing for instance how flexible
our mind operates with spatial metaphors how the peculiarities of our bodies determine the way
we assign meaning to space and how the asymmetry of our brain influences spatial and face
perception. Finally it is revealed that also how we write language - from left to right or
from right to left - shapes how we perceive interpret and produce horizontal movement and
order. The evidence ranges from linguistics to social and spatial perception to neuropsychology
seamlessly integrating such diverse findings as speed in word comprehension children's
depictions of abstract concepts estimates of the steepness of hills and archival research on
how often Homer Simpson is depicted left or right of Marge. The chapters in this book offer a
topology of social cognition and explore the pivotal role language plays in creating links
between spatial and social thought.
