Varieties of abstract concepts and their grounding in perception or action

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Kiefer ◽  
Marcel Harpaintner
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Conceptual Memory ◽  
Sensorimotor Information ◽  
Concrete Concepts

AbstractFor a very long time, theorizing in the cognitive sciences was dominated by the assumption that abstract concepts, which lack a perceivable referent, can only be handled by amodal or verbal linguistic representations. In the last years, however, refined grounded cognition theories emphasizing the importance of emotional and introspective information for abstract concepts, in addition to verbal associations and sensorimotor information, have received increasing support. Here, we review theoretical accounts of the structure and neural basis of conceptual memory and evaluate them in light of recent empirical evidence with regard to the processing of concrete and abstract concepts. Based on this literature review, we argue that abstract concepts should not be treated as a homogenous conceptual category, whose meaning is established by one single specific type of representation. Instead, depending on the feature composition, there are different subgroups of abstract concepts, including those with strong relations to vision or action, which are represented in the visual and motor brain systems similar to concrete concepts. The reviewed findings with regard to concrete and abstract concepts can be accommodated best by hybrid theories of conceptual representation assuming an interaction between modality-specific, multimodal and amodal hub areas.

EXPRESS: Articulatory suppression delays processing of abstract words: the role of inner speech

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110536
Author(s):  
Chiara Fini ◽  
Gian Daniele Zannino ◽  
Matteo Orsoni ◽  
Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo ◽  
Mariagrazia Benassi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Articulatory Suppression ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Dominant Hand ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Single Object ◽  
Abstract Words ◽  
Concrete Concepts

Compared to concrete concepts, like “book”, abstract concepts expressed by words like “justice” are more detached from sensorial experiences, even though they are also grounded in sensorial modalities. Abstract concepts lack a single object as referent and are characterized by higher variability both within and across participants. According to the Word as Social Tool (WAT) proposal, owing to their complexity, abstract concepts need to be processed with the help of inner language. Inner language can namely help participants to re-explain to themselves the meaning of the word, to keep information active in working memory, and to prepare themselves to ask information from more competent people. While previous studies have demonstrated that the mouth is involved during abstract concepts’ processing, both the functional role and the mechanisms underlying this involvement still need to be clarified. We report an experiment in which participants were required to evaluate whether 78 words were abstract or concrete by pressing two different pedals. During the judgment task, they were submitted, in different blocks, to a baseline, an articulatory suppression, and a manipulation condition. In the last two conditions, they had to repeat a syllable continually and to manipulate a softball with their dominant hand. Results showed that articulatory suppression slowed down the processing of abstract more than that of concrete words. Overall results confirm the WAT proposal’s hypothesis that abstract concepts processing involves the mouth motor system and specifically inner speech. We discuss the implications for current theories of conceptual representation.

scholarly journals Cortical Representations of Concrete and Abstract Concepts in Language Combine Visual and Linguistic Representations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Tang ◽  
Amanda LeBel ◽  
Alexander G Huth
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Linguistic Information ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Concrete Concepts ◽  
Perceptual Systems

The human semantic system stores knowledge acquired through both perception and language. To study how semantic representations in cortex integrate perceptual and linguistic information, we created semantic word embedding spaces that combine models of visual and linguistic processing. We then used these visually-grounded semantic spaces to fit voxelwise encoding models to fMRI data collected while subjects listened to hours of narrative stories. We found that cortical regions near the visual system represent concepts by combining visual and linguistic information, while regions near the language system represent concepts using mostly linguistic information. Assessing individual representations near visual cortex, we found that more concrete concepts contain more visual information, while even abstract concepts contain some amount of visual information from associated concrete concepts. Finally we found that these visual grounding effects are localized near visual cortex, suggesting that semantic representations specifically reflect the modality of adjacent perceptual systems. Our results provide a computational account of how visual and linguistic information are combined to represent concrete and abstract concepts across cortex.

scholarly journals Is justice grounded? How expertise shapes conceptual representation of institutional concepts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caterina Villani ◽  
Stefania D’Ascenzo ◽  
Anna M. Borghi ◽  
Corrado Roversi ◽  
Mariagrazia Benassi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Inner Experiences ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Hand Involvement ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
Concrete Concepts

AbstractUsing abstract concepts is a hallmark of human cognition. While multiple kinds of abstract concepts exist, they so far have been conceived as a unitary kind in opposition to concrete ones. Here, we focus on Institutional concepts, like justice or norm, investigating their fine-grained differences with respect to other kinds of abstract and concrete concepts, and exploring whether their representation varies according to individual proficiency. Specifically, we asked experts and non-experts in the legal field to evaluate four kinds of concepts (i.e., institutional, theoretical, food, artefact) on 16 dimensions: abstractness-concreteness; imageability; contextual availability; familiarity; age of acquisition; modality of acquisition; social valence; social metacognition; arousal; valence; interoception; metacognition; perceptual modality strength; body-object interaction; mouth and hand involvement. Results showed that Institutional concepts rely more than other categories on linguistic/social and inner experiences and are primarily characterized by positive valence. In addition, a more subtle characterization of the institutional domain emerged: Pure-institutional concepts (e.g., parliament) were perceived as more similar to technical tools, while Meta-institutional concepts (e.g., validity) were characterized mainly by abstract components. Importantly, for what concerns individual proficiency, we found that the level of expertise affects conceptual representation. Only law-experts associated Institutional concepts with exteroceptive and emotional experiences, showing also a more grounded and situated representation of the two types of institutional concepts. Overall, our finding highlights the richness and flexibility of abstract concepts and suggests that they differ in the degree of embodiment and grounding. Implications of the results for current theories of conceptual representation and social institutions are discussed.

Making it abstract, making it contestable: Gender/sex as a politicized concept

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Matteo Santarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Biological Feature ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
The One

The concept of gender has been the battleground of scientific and political speculations for a long time. On the one hand, some accounts contended that gender is a biological feature, while on the other hand some scholars maintained that gender is a socio-cultural construct (e.g., Butler, 1990; Risman, 2004). Some of the questions that animated the debate on gender over history are: how many genders are there? Is gender rooted in our biological asset? Are gender and sex the same thing? All of these questions entwine one more crucial, and often overlooked interrogative. How is it possible for a concept to be the purview of so many disagreements and conceptual redefinitions? The question that this paper addresses is therefore not which specific account of gender is preferable. Rather, the main question we will address is how and why is even possible to disagree on how gender should be considered. To provide partial answers to these questions, we suggest that gender/sex (van Anders, 2015; Fausto-Sterling, 2019) is an illustrative example of politicized concepts. We show that no concepts are political in themselves; instead, some concepts are subjected to a process involving a progressive detachment from their supposed concrete referent (i.e., abstractness), a tension to generalizability (i.e., abstraction), a partial indeterminacy (i.e., vagueness), and the possibility of being contested (i.e., contestability). All of these features differentially contribute to what we call the politicization of a concept. In short, we will claim that in order to politicize a concept, a possible strategy is to evidence its more abstract facets, without denying its more embodied and perceptual components (Borghi et al., 2019). So, we will first outline how gender has been treated in psychological and philosophical discussions, to evidence its essentially contestable character thereby showing how it became a politicized concept. Then we will review some of the most influential accounts of political concepts, arguing that currently they need to be integrated with more sophisticated distinctions (e.g., Koselleck, 2004). The notions gained from the analyses of some of the most important accounts of political concepts in social sciences and philosophy will allow us to implement a more dynamic approach to political concepts. Specifically, when translated into the cognitive science framework, these reflections will help us clarifying some crucial aspects of the nature of politicized concepts. Bridging together social and cognitive sciences, we will show how politicized concepts are abstract concepts, or better abstract conceptualizations.

Effects of Context on Processing Emotionally Neutral Abstract and Concrete Concepts

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 1191-1200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liusheng Wang ◽  
Hongmei Qiu ◽  
Jianjun Yin
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Context Condition ◽  
Word Context ◽  
Concrete Concepts ◽  
Concrete Words

The abstractness effect describes the phenomenon of individuals processing abstract concepts faster and more accurately than they process concrete concepts. In this study, we explored the effects of context on how 43 college students processed words, controlling for the emotional valence of the words. The participants performed a lexical decision task in which they were shown individual abstract and concrete words, or abstract and concrete words embedded in sentences. The results showed that in the word-context condition the participants' processing of concrete concepts improved, whereas in the sentence-context condition their processing of abstract concepts improved. These findings support the embodied cognition theory of concept processing.

scholarly journals Abstract Concepts in Grounded Cognition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lakens
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Information ◽  
Grounded Cognition ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Auditory Space ◽  
Conceptual Processing ◽  
Conceptual Thought ◽  
Cognitive Revolution ◽  
Perceptual Characteristics

In the present dissertation, I examine the role of sensory information for abstract conceptual thought. In Chapter 1, the central assumptions in grounded approaches to cognition are introduced and contrasted with more traditional views on the representation of concepts expressed by cognitive researchers since the cognitive revolution in psychology. The three empirical chapters of this thesis focus on how morality, time, and valence are grounded in perceptual symmetry, left-right auditory space, and brightness, respectively. Together, these chapters show that perceptual information influences abstract conceptual processing, even for highly abstract concepts that lack perceptual characteristics.

scholarly journals How well do similarity measures predict priming in abstract and concrete concepts?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Montefinese ◽  
Erin Michelle Buchanan ◽  
David Vinson
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Similarity Measures ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Association Strength ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Strategic Processes ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Concrete Concepts

Models of semantic representation predict that automatic priming is determined by associative and co-occurrence relations (i.e., spreading activation accounts), or to similarity in words' semantic features (i.e., featural models). Although, these three factors are correlated in characterizing semantic representation, they seem to tap different aspects of meaning. We designed two lexical decision experiments to dissociate these three different types of meaning similarity. For unmasked primes, we observed priming only due to association strength and not the other two measures; and no evidence for differences in priming for concrete and abstract concepts. For masked primes there was no priming regardless of the semantic relation. These results challenge theoretical accounts of automatic priming. Rather, they are in line with the idea that priming may be due to participants’ controlled strategic processes. These results provide important insight about the nature of priming and how association strength, as determined from word-association norms, relates to the nature of semantic representation.

scholarly journals Exploring Geometric Feature Hyper-Space in Data to Learn Representations of Abstract Concepts

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Sharma ◽  
Bernardete Ribeiro ◽  
Alexandre Miguel Pinto ◽  
F. Amílcar Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Training Data ◽  
Geometric Feature ◽  
Automatic Identification ◽  
Computational Domain ◽  
Abstract Concept ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Concept Representation ◽  
Data Problem ◽  
Rans Modeling ◽  
Concrete Concepts

The term concept has been a prominent part of investigations in psychology and neurobiology where, mostly, it is mathematically or theoretically represented. Concepts are also studied in the computational domain through their symbolic, distributed and hybrid representations. The majority of these approaches focused on addressing concrete concepts notion, but the view of the abstract concept is rarely explored. Moreover, most computational approaches have a predefined structure or configurations. The proposed method, Regulated Activation Network (RAN), has an evolving topology and learns representations of abstract concepts by exploiting the geometrical view of concepts, without supervision. In the article, first, a Toy-data problem was used to demonstrate the RANs modeling. Secondly, we demonstrate the liberty of concept identifier choice in RANs modeling and deep hierarchy generation using the IRIS dataset. Thirdly, data from the IoT’s human activity recognition problem is used to show automatic identification of alike classes as abstract concepts. The evaluation of RAN with eight UCI benchmarks and the comparisons with five Machine Learning models establishes the RANs credibility as a classifier. The classification operation also proved the RANs hypothesis of abstract concept representation. The experiments demonstrate the RANs ability to simulate psychological processes (like concept creation and learning) and carry out effective classification irrespective of training data size.

scholarly journals Data-driven computational models reveal perceptual simulation in word processing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Alessandro Petilli ◽  
Fritz Günther ◽  
Alessandra Vergallito ◽  
Marco Ciapparelli ◽  
Marco Marelli
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Grounded Cognition ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Continuous Scale ◽  
Behavioural Performance ◽  
Sensorimotor Information ◽  
Conceptual Equivalence ◽  
Prime Target

In their strongest formulation, theories of grounded cognition claim that concepts are made up of sensorimotor information. Following such equivalence, perceptual properties of objects should consistently influence processing, even in purely linguistic tasks, where perceptual information is neither solicited nor required. Previous studies have tested this prediction in semantic priming tasks, but they have not observed perceptual influences on participants’ performances. However, those findings suffer from critical shortcomings, which may have prevented potential visually grounded/perceptual effects from being detected. Here, we investigate this topic by applying an innovative method expected to increase the sensitivity in detecting such perceptual effects. Specifically, we adopt an objective, data-driven, computational approach to independently quantify vision-based and language-based similarities for prime-target pairs on a continuous scale. We test whether these measures predict behavioural performance in a semantic priming mega-study with various experimental settings. Vision-based similarity is found to facilitate performance, but a dissociation between vision-based and language-based effects was also observed. Thus, in line with theories of grounded cognition, perceptual properties can facilitate word processing even in purely linguistic tasks, but the behavioural dissociation at the same time challenges strong claims of sensorimotor and conceptual equivalence.

scholarly journals Based on the New Idea of Improving the Teaching Effect of Physical Chemistry by Reducing Students’ Burden

2020 ◽  
Vol 213 ◽  
pp. 03001
Author(s):  
Li Han ◽  
Hui Wang ◽  
Weijuan Gong
Keyword(s):  
Physical Chemistry ◽  
College Students ◽  
Learning Effect ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Teaching Mode ◽  
Passive Listening ◽  
Long Time

In order to improve the professional level of college students and promote their overall development, colleges and universities adopt credit system, students are required to learn several elective courses in addition to the basic professional courses and professional skills courses, so that students are constantly passive listening to lectures, is not conducive to the cultivation of students’ independent learning ability and expertise play. The course of physical chemistry is characterized by many formulas and abstract concepts. It is difficult for students to learn and takes up a long time after class. Therefore, it is very necessary to adopt diversified teaching mode, expand teaching links, ensure students’ learning effect in class and reduce their learning burden after class.

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