Abstract

The cognitive and neural representation of abstract words is still an open question for theories of embodied cognition. Generally, it is proposed that abstract words are grounded in the activation of sensorimotor or at least experiential properties, exactly as concrete words. Further behavioral theories propose multiple representations evoked by abstract and concrete words. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to investigate the neural correlates of concrete and abstract multi-word expressions in an action context. Participants were required to read simple sentences which combined each concrete noun with an adequate concrete verb and an adequate abstract verb, as well as an adequate abstract noun with either kind of verbs previously used. Thus, our experimental design included a continuum from pure concreteness to mere abstractness. As expected, comprehension of both concrete and abstract language content activated the core areas of the sensorimotor neural network namely the left lateral (precentral gyrus) and medial (supplementary motor area) premotor cortex. While the purely concrete multi-word expressions elicited activations within the left inferior frontal gyrus (pars triangularis) and two foci within the left inferior parietal cortex, the purely abstract multi-word expressions were represented in the anterior part of left middle temporal gyrus that is part of the language processing system. Although the sensorimotor neural network is engaged in both concrete and abstract language contents, the present findings show that concrete multi-word processing relies more on the sensorimotor system, and abstract multi-word processing relies more on the linguistic system.

Highlights

  • Embodied and grounded cognition theories such as Theories of Situated Action, Cognitive Linguistics Theories, Cognitive and Social Simulation Theories, are becoming increasingly popular in cognitive neuroscience

  • As the study focused on differential neural correlates of abstract and concrete contents of language the main effect of interest was achieved by contrasting condition concrete noun-verb combinations (CC) and condition abstract noun-verb combinations (AA)

  • One of the core open questions in this area concerns the difference in neural representations of concrete and abstract words, as for instance “cake” vs. “theme.” This functional imaging study addressed this question by presenting participants with combinations of nouns referring to graspable/nongraspable objects/entities and motor/non-motor verbs within a concreteness-to-abstractness continuum in order to generate a novel experimental design which allows to differentiate between the role of verbs and nouns in abstract contents processing

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Summary

Introduction

Embodied and grounded cognition theories such as Theories of Situated Action, Cognitive Linguistics Theories, Cognitive and Social Simulation Theories (for a review, see Barsalou, 2008), are becoming increasingly popular in cognitive neuroscience. This approach extends to different domains (e.g., perception, action, language, decision-making etc.) and crosses different disciplines, from philosophy (e.g., Clark, 1999), developmental psychology (e.g., Smith, 2005), and social psychology (e.g., Semin and Smith, 2008), to computer science and robotics (e.g., Nolfi and Floreano, 2000; Ziemke, 2002). Behavioral and neural evidence has reliably shown that the process of language comprehension elicits activations within primary and secondary motor areas, prompting an explanation in terms of embodied simulation (for reviews, see Pulvermüller, 2005; Barsalou, 2008; Fischer and Zwaan, 2008; Toni et al, 2008)

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