Varieties Of Abstract Concepts Research Articles

Varieties of abstract concepts and their grounding in perception or action

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.

Varieties of abstract concepts and their multiple dimensions

abstractThe issue of how abstract concepts are represented is widely debated. However, evidence is controversial, also because different criteria were used to select abstract concepts – for example, imageability and abstractness were equated. In addition, for many years abstract concepts have been considered as a unitary whole. Our work aims to address these two limitations. We asked participants to evaluate 425 abstract concepts on 15 dimensions: abstractness, concreteness, imageability, context availability, Body-Object-Interaction, Modality of Acquisition, Age of Acquisition, Perceptual modality strength, Metacognition, Social metacognition, Interoception, Emotionality, Social valence, Hand and Mouth activation. Results showed that conceiving concepts only in terms of concreteness/abstractness is too simplified. More abstract concepts are typically acquired later and through the linguistic modality and are characterized by high scores in social metacognition (feeling that others can help us in understanding word meaning), while concrete concepts obtain high scores in Body-Object-Interaction, imageability, and context availability. A cluster analysis indicated four kinds of abstract concepts: philosophical-spiritual (e.g., value), self-sociality (e.g., politeness), emotive/inner states (e.g., anger), and physical, spatio-temporal, and quantitative concepts (e.g., reflex). Overall, results support multiple representation views indicating that sensorimotor, inner, linguistic, and social experience have different weights in characterizing different kinds of abstract concepts.

Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain.

The capacity for abstract thought is one of the hallmarks of human cognition. However, the mechanisms underlying the ability to form and use abstract concepts like 'fantasy' and 'grace' have not been elucidated yet. This theme issue brings together developmental, social and cognitive psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, philosophers and computer scientists to present theoretical insights and novel evidence on how abstract concepts are acquired, used and represented in the brain. Many of the contributions conceive concepts as grounded in sensorimotor systems and constrained by bodily mechanisms and structures. The theme issue develops along two main axes, related to the most promising research directions on abstract concepts. The axes focus on (i) the different kinds of abstract concepts (numbers, emotions, evaluative concepts like moral and aesthetic ones, social concepts); (ii) the role played by perception and action, language and sociality, and inner processes (emotions, interoception, metacognition) in grounding abstract concepts. Most papers adopt a cognitive science/neuroscience approach, but the theme issue also includes studies on development, on social cognition, and on how linguistic diversity shapes abstract concepts. Overall, the theme issue provides an integrated theoretical account that highlights the importance of language, sociality and inner processes for abstract concepts, and that offers new methodological tools to investigate them.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Sentential negation of abstract and concrete conceptual categories: a brain decoding multivariate pattern analysis study.

We rarely use abstract and concrete concepts in isolation but rather embedded within a linguistic context. To examine the modulatory impact of the linguistic context on conceptual processing, we isolated the case of sentential negation polarity, in which an interaction occurs between the syntactic operator not and conceptual information in the negation's scope. Previous studies suggested that sentential negation of concrete action-related concepts modulates activation in the fronto-parieto-temporal action representation network. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined the influence of negation on a wider spectrum of meanings, by factorially manipulating sentence polarity (affirmative, negative) and fine-grained abstract (mental state, emotion, mathematics) and concrete (related to mouth, hand, leg actions) conceptual categories. We adopted a multivariate pattern analysis approach, and tested the accuracy of a machine learning classifier in discriminating brain activation patterns associated to the factorial manipulation. Searchlight analysis was used to localize the discriminating patterns. Overall, the neural processing of affirmative and negative sentences with either an abstract or concrete content could be accurately predicted by means of multivariate classification. We suggest that sentential negation polarity modulates brain activation in distributed representational semantic networks, through the functional mediation of syntactic and cognitive control systems.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Boundaries to grounding abstract concepts.

Grounded theories of cognition claim that concept representation relies on the systems for perception and action. The sensory-motor grounding of abstract concepts presents a challenge for these theories. Some accounts propose that abstract concepts are indirectly grounded via image schemas or situations. Recent research, however, indicates that the role of sensory-motor processing for concrete concepts may be limited, providing evidence against the idea that abstract concepts are grounded via concrete concepts. Hybrid models that combine language and sensory-motor experience may provide a more viable account of abstract and concrete representations. We propose that sensory-motor grounding is important during acquisition and provides structure to concepts. Later activation of concepts relies on this structure but does not necessarily involve sensory-motor processing. Language is needed to create coherent concepts from diverse sensory-motor experiences.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Scanning of speechless comics changes spatial biases in mental model construction.

The mental representation of both time and number shows lateral spatial biases, which can be affected by habitual reading and writing direction. However, this effect is in place before children begin to read. One potential early cause is the experiences of looking at picture books together with a carer, as those images also follow the directionality of the script. What is the underlying mechanism for this effect? In the present study, we test the possibility that such experiences induce spatial biases in mental model construction, a mechanism which is a good candidate to induce the biases observed with numbers and times. We presented a speechless comic in either standard (left-to-right) or mirror-reversed (right-to-left) form to adult Spanish participants. We then asked them to draw the scene depicted by sentences like 'the square is between the cross and the circle'. The position of the lateral objects in these drawings reveals the spatial biases at work when building mental models in working memory. Under conditions of highly consistent directionality, the mirror comic changed pre-existing lateral biases. Processes of mental model construction in working memory stand as a potential mechanism for the generation of spatial biases for time and number.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

A Peircean account of concepts: grounding abstraction in phylogeny through a comparative neuroscientific perspective

The nature of concepts has always been a hotly debated topic in both philosophy and psychology and, more recently, also in cognitive neuroscience. Different accounts have been proposed of what concepts are. These accounts reflect deeply different conceptions of how the human mind works. In the last decades, two diametrically opposed theories of human cognition have been discussed and empirically investigated: the Computational Theory of Mind, on the one hand (Fodor 1983 The modularity of mind: an essay on faculty psychology; Pylyshyn 1984 Computation and cognition: toward a foundation for cognitive science), and Embodied Cognition (Barsalou 2008 Annu. Rev. Psychol.59, 617-645. (doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093639); Gallese & Lakoff 2005 Cogn. Neuropsychol.22, 455-479 (doi:10.1080/02643290442000310); Shapiro 2011 Embodied cognition), on the other hand. The former proposes that concepts are abstract and amodal symbols in the language of thought, while the latter argues for the embodied nature of concepts that are conceived of as grounded in actions and perception. The embodiment of both concrete and abstract concepts has been challenged by many (e.g. Mahon & Caramazza 2008 J. Physiol.102, 59-70. (doi:10.1016/j.jphysparis.2008.03.004); Caramazza et al 2014 Annu. Rev. Neurosci.37, 1-15. (doi:10.1146/annurev-neuro-071013-013950)). These challenges will be here taken seriously and addressed from a comparative perspective. We will provide a phylogenetic and neurobiologically inspired account of the embodied nature of both abstract and concrete concepts. We will propose that, although differing in certain respect, they both might have a bodily foundation. Commonalities between abstract and concrete concepts will be explained by recurring to the Peircean notions of icon and abductive inference (CP 2.247). According to Peirce, icons are the kind of signs on which abductive inferences rest (Peirce CS 1931 in Collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, Hartshorne C, Weiss P, Burks AW. (eds), 40; Peirce CS 1997 In The 1903 Harvard lectures on pragmatism (ed. A. Turrisi)). It will be claimed that the mechanism of Embodied Simulation (Gallese & Sinigaglia 2011 Trends Cogn. Sci.15, 512-519. (doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.09.003)) can be described as an icon (Cuccio V & Caruana F. 2015 Il corpo come icona. Abduzione, strumenti ed Embodied Simulation. Versus, n. 119, 93-103), and it will then be suggested that on these, basic natural signs rest, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, the capacity to conceptualize.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Number concepts: abstract and embodied.

Numerical knowledge, including number concepts and arithmetic procedures, seems to be a clear-cut case for abstract symbol manipulation. Yet, evidence from perceptual and motor behaviour reveals that natural number knowledge and simple arithmetic also remain closely associated with modal experiences. Following a review of behavioural, animal and neuroscience studies of number processing, we propose a revised understanding of psychological number concepts as grounded in physical constraints, embodied in experience and situated through task-specific intentions. The idea that number concepts occupy a range of positions on the continuum between abstract and modal conceptual knowledge also accounts for systematic heuristics and biases in mental arithmetic, thus inviting psycho-logical approaches to the study of the mathematical mind.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Learning abstract words and concepts: insights from developmental language disorder

Some explanations of abstract word learning suggest that these words are learnt primarily from the linguistic input, using statistical co-occurrences of words in language, whereas concrete words can also rely on non-linguistic, experiential information. According to this hypothesis, we expect that, if the learner is not able to fully exploit the information in the linguistic input, abstract words should be affected more than concrete ones. Embodied approaches instead argue that both abstract and concrete words can rely on experiential information and, therefore, there might not be any linguistic primacy. Here, we test the role of linguistic input in the development of abstract knowledge with children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing children aged 8-13. We show that DLD children, who by definition have impoverished language, do not show a disproportionate impairment for abstract words in lexical decision and definition tasks. These results indicate that linguistic information does not have a primary role in the learning of abstract concepts and words; rather, it would play a significant role in semantic development across all domains of knowledge.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Language is more abstract than you think, or, why aren't languages more iconic?

How abstract is language? We show that abstractness pervades every corner of language, going far beyond the usual examples of freedom and justice In the light of the ubiquity of abstract words, the need to understand where abstract meanings come from becomes ever more acute. We argue that the best source of knowledge about abstract meanings may be language itself. We then consider a seemingly unrelated question: Why isn't language more iconic? Iconicity-a resemblance between the form of words and their meanings-can be immensely useful in language learning and communication. Languages could be much more iconic than they currently are. So why aren't they? We suggest that one reason is that iconicity is inimical to abstraction because iconic forms are too connected to specific contexts and sensory depictions. Form-meaning arbitrariness may allow language to better convey abstract meanings.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Dynamic grounding of emotion concepts.

Emotion concepts are important. They help us to understand, experience and predict human behaviour. Emotion concepts also link the realm of the abstract with the realm of bodily experience and actions. Accordingly, the key question is how such concepts are created, represented and used. Embodied cognition theories hold that concepts are grounded in neural systems that produce experiential and motor states. Concepts are also contextually situated and thus engage sensorimotor resources in a dynamic, flexible way. Finally, on that framework, conceptual understanding unfolds in time, reflecting embodied as well as linguistic and cultural influences. In this article, we review empirical work on emotion concepts and show how it highlights their grounded, yet dynamic and context-sensitive nature. The conclusions are consistent with recent developments in embodied cognition that allow concepts to be linked to sensorimotor systems, yet be flexibly sensitive to current representational and action needs.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Language as a disruptive technology: abstract concepts, embodiment and the flexible mind.

A growing body of evidence suggests that cognition is embodied and grounded. Abstract concepts, though, remain a significant theoretical challenge. A number of researchers have proposed that language makes an important contribution to our capacity to acquire and employ concepts, particularly abstract ones. In this essay, I critically examine this suggestion and ultimately defend a version of it. I argue that a successful account of how language augments cognition should emphasize its symbolic properties and incorporate a view of embodiment that recognizes the flexible, multimodal and task-related nature of action, emotion and perception systems. On this view, language is an ontogenetically disruptive cognitive technology that expands our conceptual reach.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Communicating abstract meaning: concepts revealed in words and gestures

words refer to concepts that cannot be directly experienced through our senses (e.g. truth, morality). How we ground the meanings of abstract words is one of the deepest problems in cognitive science today. We investigated this question in an experiment in which 62 participants were asked to communicate the meanings of words (20 abstract nouns, e.g. impulse; 10 concrete nouns, e.g. insect) to a partner without using the words themselves (the taboo task). We analysed the speech and associated gestures that participants used to communicate the meaning of each word in the taboo task. Analysis of verbal and gestural data yielded a number of insights. When communicating about the meanings of abstract words, participants' speech referenced more people and introspections. In contrast, the meanings of concrete words were communicated by referencing more objects and entities. Gesture results showed that when participants spoke about abstract word meanings their speech was accompanied by more metaphorical and beat gestures, and speech about concrete word meanings was accompanied by more iconic gestures. Taken together, the results suggest that abstract meanings are best captured by a model that allows dynamic access to multiple representation systems.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Gender is not simply a matter of black and white, or is it?

Based on research in physical anthropology, we argue that brightness marks the abstract category of gender, with light colours marking the female gender and dark colours marking the male gender. In a set of three experiments, we examine this hypothesis, first in a speeded gender classification experiment with male and female names presented in black and white. As expected, male names in black and female names in white are classified faster than the reverse gender-colour combinations. The second experiment relies on a gender classification task involving the disambiguation of very briefly appearing non-descript stimuli in the form of black and white ‘blobs’. The former are classified predominantly as male and the latter as female names. Finally, the processes driving light and dark object choices for males and females are examined by tracking the number of fixations and their duration in an eye-tracking experiment. The results reveal that when choosing for a male target, participants look longer and make more fixations on dark objects, and the same for light objects when choosing for a female target. The implications of these findings, which repeatedly reveal the same data patterns across experiments with Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish samples for the abstract category of gender, are discussed. The discussion attempts to enlarge the subject beyond mainstream models of embodied grounding.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain’.