Does slow flow mean calmness? Metaphorical connection mechanism between emotional concepts and water flow

Introduction: Current explorations of the metaphorical relationship between emotions and water have primarily focused on the literary and linguistic dimensions, where emotions are expressed through the concepts and characteristics of water. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying their metaphorical connection have not yet been systematically examined. Methods: This study examined the metaphorical connection and mapping between emotional concepts and water flow via three experiments. Experiment 1 used the Stroop paradigm, presenting emotional words and water flow backgrounds simultaneously to measure participants' reaction times through button presses. Experiments 2 and 3 adopted the Semantic Priming paradigm: Experiment 2 activated emotional words prior to water flow words, while Experiment 3 activated water flow words first, with reaction times measured via button presses in both. Results: Experiment 1 confirmed a significant metaphorical connection between emotional concepts and water flow (positive emotions-slow-flowing water, negative emotions-turbulent water). Experiments 2 and 3 revealed bidirectional priming effects: activation of positive emotion words accelerated responses to slow-flowing water words, while negative emotion words facilitated responses to turbulent water words; conversely, slow-flowing water words primed faster responses to positive emotion words, and turbulent water words primed faster responses to negative emotion words. Conclusion: (1) There exists a significant metaphorical association between emotion concepts and water flow. (2) There exists a bidirectional mapping relationship between emotional concepts and water flow.