Situated Embodiment: When Physical Weight Does and Does Not Inform Judgments of Importance

Bodily sensations impact metaphorically related judgments. Are such effects obligatory or do they follow the logic of knowledge accessibility? If the latter, the impact of sensory information should be moderated by the accessibility of the related metaphor at the time of sensory experience. We manipulated whether “importance” was on participants’ minds when they held a physically heavy versus light book. Participants held the book while making...