Multimodal priming of abstract constructs

constructs such as morality, warmth, and competence are the bread and butter of social psychology. Their antecedents and consequences have been explored frequently using semantic priming, in keeping with early models of memory representation as a semantic network of concept nodes. Contrary to what these models would predict, sensorimotor experiences in multiple modalities have proven capable of activating abstract constructs, even if they are no more than metaphorically related. In this paper, I review illustrative evidence for multimodal priming of abstract constructs through embodied metaphors. This work has implications for debates about the activation of mental content and the form of mental representation. It also highlights the need to address several thorny issues for theoretical advances.