In this paper, a self-created analogy is presented based on comparing the process of osmosis with a situation recreated in a train carriage. It was implemented with upper-secondary education students at a secondary school in Chiclana de la Frontera (Cádiz, Spain). To assess the progression of the students' models on osmosis, their activities…

Several studies have explored the use of iconic gestures to improve the learning of foreign vocabulary. In this quest, words for abstract concepts have been largely neglected, under the assumption that abstract concepts have poor or non-existent sensory-motor representations. Yet, the Conceptual Metaphor Theory suggests that they are grounded on…

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words' emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present…