and their relation to crime. Her work has suggested that some conventional and systematic metaphors influence the way people reason about the issues they describe. For instance, previous work has found that people were more likely to want to fight back against a crime "beast" by increasing the police force but more likely to want to diagnose and treat a crime "virus" through social reform. Publications (partial list) Thibodeau PH, Boroditsky L (2015) Measuring Effects of Metaphor in a Dynamic Opinion Landscape. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0133939. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133939 Thibodeau PH, Boroditsky L (2013) Natural Language Metaphors Covertly Influence Reasoning. PLoS ONE 8(1): e52961. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052961 Boroditsky, L. & Ramscar, M. (2002). The roles of body and mind in abstract thought. Psychological Science, 13(2), 185–188. Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought? Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43(1), 1–22. Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric Structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75(1), 1–28. References External links Babel's children". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2015-12-15 Audio of An interview with Lera Boroditsky on Language and Thought with Joshua Landy on November 4, 2008. Searle Scholars Profile Living people Year of birth uncertain 1970s births American cognitive psychologists Psycholinguists Northwestern University alumni Stanford University alumni Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty 21st-century American women scientists 20th-century American women scientists Soviet Jews Women linguists 20th-century American scientists 21st-century American scientists Jewish American social scientists Jewish women scientists Science communicators Soviet emigrants to the United States Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty 21st-century American Jews