Recent research supports the “metaphor theory” — that we think of abstract concepts in terms of how our bodies function.

University of Melbourne researchers found that the direction of eye movements depends on whether numbers in a series heard by the subject are increasing or decreasing. And Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics researchers found that subjects moved marbles faster when retelling stories with positive emotional content than with stories linked to negative emotions, implying that body motions may drive thoughts.