Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy
Ritual knots are symmetrical crisscrossing designs that appear in distant cultures around the world. Their independent emergence is plausibly due to shared features of human cognition and experience that such patterns represent. Since empirical investigation of this possibility is lacking in the lit...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2020-12-01
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| Series: | Symmetry |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/13/1/34 |
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| author | Zahra Vahedi Jamin Pelkey Sari Park Stéphanie Walsh Matthews |
| author_facet | Zahra Vahedi Jamin Pelkey Sari Park Stéphanie Walsh Matthews |
| author_sort | Zahra Vahedi |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Ritual knots are symmetrical crisscrossing designs that appear in distant cultures around the world. Their independent emergence is plausibly due to shared features of human cognition and experience that such patterns represent. Since empirical investigation of this possibility is lacking in the literature, our aim is to open up this research area. We do so by asking whether the cultural production and appreciation of ritual knots could be conditioned or motivated by alignments and affordances linked to creative human cognition—advanced analogical modeling processes that are themselves often discussed in terms of bidirectional blending and symmetrical mapping. If manual tracing of a traditional knot design had positive priming effects on such reasoning processes, as we hypothesize, this would suggest an explanatory link between the two. To begin testing this hypothesis, we selected a basic, traditional knot design from Tibet, along with three established measures of formal analogical reasoning and one original measure of syntactic preference involving reciprocal constructions. We then undertook a series of cognitive trials testing for potential cognitive benefits of manually tracing the design. We contrasted prime condition results with a control group and an anti-prime condition group. The data show observable effects of time across multiple measures but no significant effects of time or condition, controlling for reported mindfulness. While this rules out the short-term priming effects of enhanced analogical reasoning at the analytic level following brief manual tracing of this design, the research opens the way for further empirical experimentation on the nature and emergence of symmetrical knots and their potential relationships with patterns of human thought. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T13:42:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-46fd5bb18587435193409bdcb353a909 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2073-8994 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T13:42:30Z |
| publishDate | 2020-12-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Symmetry |
| spelling | doaj.art-46fd5bb18587435193409bdcb353a9092023-11-21T02:51:28ZengMDPI AGSymmetry2073-89942020-12-011313410.3390/sym13010034Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic AnalogyZahra Vahedi0Jamin Pelkey1Sari Park2Stéphanie Walsh Matthews3Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, CanadaDepartment of Languages, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, CanadaDepartment of Languages, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, CanadaDepartment of Languages, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, CanadaRitual knots are symmetrical crisscrossing designs that appear in distant cultures around the world. Their independent emergence is plausibly due to shared features of human cognition and experience that such patterns represent. Since empirical investigation of this possibility is lacking in the literature, our aim is to open up this research area. We do so by asking whether the cultural production and appreciation of ritual knots could be conditioned or motivated by alignments and affordances linked to creative human cognition—advanced analogical modeling processes that are themselves often discussed in terms of bidirectional blending and symmetrical mapping. If manual tracing of a traditional knot design had positive priming effects on such reasoning processes, as we hypothesize, this would suggest an explanatory link between the two. To begin testing this hypothesis, we selected a basic, traditional knot design from Tibet, along with three established measures of formal analogical reasoning and one original measure of syntactic preference involving reciprocal constructions. We then undertook a series of cognitive trials testing for potential cognitive benefits of manually tracing the design. We contrasted prime condition results with a control group and an anti-prime condition group. The data show observable effects of time across multiple measures but no significant effects of time or condition, controlling for reported mindfulness. While this rules out the short-term priming effects of enhanced analogical reasoning at the analytic level following brief manual tracing of this design, the research opens the way for further empirical experimentation on the nature and emergence of symmetrical knots and their potential relationships with patterns of human thought.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/13/1/34symmetrical reasoninganalogycreativityenactive cognitioncognitive psychologycognitive anthropology |
| spellingShingle | Zahra Vahedi Jamin Pelkey Sari Park Stéphanie Walsh Matthews Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy Symmetry symmetrical reasoning analogy creativity enactive cognition cognitive psychology cognitive anthropology |
| title | Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy |
| title_full | Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy |
| title_fullStr | Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy |
| title_short | Testing Symmetrical Knot Tracing for Cognitive Priming Effects Rules out Analytic Analogy |
| title_sort | testing symmetrical knot tracing for cognitive priming effects rules out analytic analogy |
| topic | symmetrical reasoning analogy creativity enactive cognition cognitive psychology cognitive anthropology |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/13/1/34 |
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