River: Warmth: apparently it's not just a metaphor

[mdlbear]

According to an article in the October 24th issue of Science Magazine (p. 606) titled "Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth", people holding a warm cup of coffee are more likely to judge the person they're interacting with as having a warm personality than people holding a cup of iced coffee. People touching a warm object are more likely than people touching a cold object to give a gift to a friend rather than treat themselves.

I'm not sure which I find more weird: that there is, somehow, a reason why we use the same word for these two seemingly disparate concepts, or that Colleen doesn't find it weird at all.

In any case, I think I'll make myself a cup of hot ginger tea.

(ETA: Colleen and the article both point out the association between physical warmth and comfort, and the care a mother gives her infant. That is, indeed, the likely connection. I still find the linguistic association surprising. The fact that Colleen picked up on it instantly while I can only make the connection intellectually is, of course, not surprising in the least, but I find it vaguely disturbing.)

Comments

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

In my ex-boss's Neuroscience class, he pointed out that the taste and temperature receptors in the tongue for Hot = Spicy and Hot = Hi Temp. are the same.

Personally, I think there's something else going on as well, since as I grow older, I can still accommodate almost all the spicy tolerance that I cultivated in my youth (yes, it was very akin to athletic training); but fresh-from-the-oven temperatures Hurt! until the food cools off to merely hot-to-warm.

Another thing that I learned in that class was the 5th taste, "Umami," in addition to Sweet/Sour/Salty/Bitter. Umami is a receptor for the glutamate ion (as in monosodium glutamate).

[mdlbear]

The receptors for "cool" and "mint" are also the same, hence menthol cough drops and so on.