Metaphors tied to our senses shape real-world perceptions via "embodied cognition."

Language influences social proximity; we stand closer to those we agree with.

Light affects honesty: darker settings can make one feel less honest.

What you are saying affects your life in ways you might not have realized.

Everyday metaphors are linked to how we experience the world around us, according to seminal work by researchers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. In English, we "move forward" with our lives and don't "retreat into" the past. We speak about people who are "cold as ice" and "heavy" matters we need to resolve.

Using sophisticated studies, researchers are finding that some of these metaphorical expressions are more than just, well, expressions—they are based in our sensory experiences. This mind-body link is called "embodied cognition." The connection between places/objects and experiences, which the study of embodied cognition uncovers, can help us understand and enhance our relationships with the physical world.

Some useful findings to date:

When we're thinking about the future, we lean forward ever so slightly, and when we're considering the past, we move slightly backward.

We speak of being "close" to people whose opinions we share. Personal space research indicates that we generally stand closer to people we tend to agree with. Easily moveable furniture helps us keep a socially comfortable distance from other people.

"Up" is generally associated with good things—heaven and penthouses, for example, or "being on top of the world," and "down" with negative things, such as hell and dungeons. Position objects and spaces to take advantage of this higher-is-better effect.

When we're in a dark place, we're apt to be less honest—even if that dimmer space is just a few shades darker than what results from putting on conventional sunglasses. In general, we associate the color black with things that are immoral, and its opposite, white, with concepts that are also opposite.

When we are dishonest, we are apt to feel physically dirty—and cleaning up makes us feel more moral. A "clean record" seems to be a real-life goal. People smelling scents associated with cleanliness (such as citrus-scented Windex) are fairer and more generous. In spaces where people might be tempted to behave less than admirably or where "good" behavior is highly desired, a "clean" scent will go a long way to facilitating desired actions.

Humans who have been excluded socially feel physically colder than people who have not, and when people feel warmer, they're more connected to their friends—there seems to be a hidden truth in that "cold shoulder." When we are closer to other people, we sense their body heat, and when it is warmer in a place because the thermostat is turned higher, we perceive the other people in that space as socially closer to us; we have a "warm" relationship with them. Think about this effect when you're considering the perceived temperatures of public spaces or when setting the thermostat in the family room at home.

Important matters are linked to heavy weight in our minds—remember the comic refrain from the '60s, "Heavy, man." More important objects also seem heavier. Keep this effect in mind when you're selecting, for example, frames for personally significant images.

Investigators have also determined that the language we speak first continues to influence how we experience the designed world even much later in life and when we’re using another.

For example, however that first language divided up the color world with names is how you will do so throughout your life. If it gives completely different sounding names to light and dark blue and doesn’t just distinguish them with an adjective as English does, you will be speedy at differentiating variations in samples of those blues throughout your life.

Another example: If your first language categorizes nouns as masculine or feminine, as French and Spanish do, for instance, that will also matter even long after you leave your homeland. If your original language uses a feminine article with “chair,” for example, at 35 years old and living far from your first home, you will likely feel that the “best sorts” of chairs are relatively more curvilinear and graceful, but if your first language used a masculine article with “chair,” you may find the best, most representative examples of chairs are angular and sturdy. You will continue to apply these gender stereotypes to objects subconsciously, a gift of your first tongue to your adult mind.

Language influences your experience of space in multiple powerful, and often unknown, ways.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Guy Deutscher. 2010. Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. New York: Metropolitan Books.

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