Abstract semantics in the motor system? – An event-related fMRI study on passive reading of semantic word categories carrying abstract emotional and mental meaning

Visual recognition of words learned with gestures induces motor resonance in the forearm muscles

According to theories of Embodied Cognition, memory for words is related to sensorimotor experiences collected during learning. At a neural level, words encoded with self-performed gestures are represented in distributed sensorimotor networks that resonate during word recognition. Here, we ask whether muscles involved in gesture execution also resonate during word recognition. Native German speakers encoded words by reading them (baseline condition) or by reading them in tandem with picture observation, gesture observation, or gesture observation and execution. Surface electromyogram (EMG) activity from both arms was recorded during the word recognition task and responses were detected using eye-tracking. The recognition of words encoded with self-performed gestures coincided with an increase in arm muscle EMG activity compared to the recognition of words learned under other conditions. This finding suggests that sensorimotor networks resonate into the periphery and provides new evidence for a strongly embodied view of recognition memory.

Contextual Acquisition of Concrete and Abstract Words: Behavioural and Electrophysiological Evidence

Abstract and concrete words differ in their cognitive and neuronal underpinnings, but the exact mechanisms underlying these distinctions are unclear. We investigated differences between these two semantic types by analysing brain responses to newly learnt words with fully controlled psycholinguistic properties. Experimental participants learned 20 novel abstract and concrete words in the context of short stories. After the learning session, event-related potentials (ERPs) to newly learned items were recorded, and acquisition outcomes were assessed behaviourally in a range of lexical and semantic tasks. Behavioural results showed better performance on newly learnt abstract words in lexical tasks, whereas semantic assessments showed a tendency for higher accuracy for concrete words. ERPs to novel abstract and concrete concepts differed early on, ~150 ms after the word onset. Moreover, differences between novel words and control untrained pseudowords were observed earlier for concrete (~150 ms) than for abstract (~200 ms) words. Distributed source analysis indicated bilateral temporo-parietal activation underpinning newly established memory traces, suggesting a crucial role of Wernicke’s area and its right-hemispheric homologue in word acquisition. In sum, we report behavioural and neurophysiological processing differences between concrete and abstract words evident immediately after their controlled acquisition, confirming distinct neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning these types of semantics.

Abstract concepts in interaction: the need of others when guessing abstract concepts smooths dyadic motor interactions

concepts (ACs, e.g. 'justice') are more complex compared with concrete concepts (CCs) (e.g. 'table'). Indeed, they do not possess a single object as a referent, they assemble quite heterogeneous members and they are more detached from exteroceptive and more grounded in interoceptive experience. Recent views have hypothesized that interpersonal communication is particularly crucial to acquire and use ACs. The current study investigates the reliance of ACs/CCs representation on interpersonal behaviour. We asked participants to perform a motor interaction task with two avatars who embodied two real confederates. Before and after the motor interaction task, the two confederates provided participants with hints in a concept guessing task associated with visual stimuli: one helped in guessing ACs and the other, CCs. A control study we performed both with the materials employed in the main experiment and with other materials, confirmed that associating verbal concepts with visual images was more difficult with ACs than with CCs. Consistently, the results of the main experiment showed that participants asked for more hints with ACs than CCs and were more synchronous when interacting with the avatar corresponding to the AC's confederate. The results highlight an important role of sociality in grounding ACs.

Development of Abstract Word Knowledge

The development of children's word knowledge is an important testing ground for the embodied account of word meaning, which proposes that word meanings are grounded in sensorimotor systems. Acquisition of abstract words, in particular, is a noted challenge for strong accounts of embodiment. We examined acquisition of abstract word meanings, using data on development of vocabulary knowledge from early school to University ages. We tested two specific proposals for how abstract words are learned: the affective embodiment account, that emotional experience is key to learning abstract word meanings, and the learning through language proposal, that abstract words are acquired through language experience. We found support for the affective embodiment account: word valence, interoception, and mouth action all facilitated abstract word acquisition more than concrete word acquisition. We tested the learning through language proposal by investigating whether words that appear in more diverse linguistic contexts are earlier acquired. Results showed that contextual diversity facilitated vocabulary acquisition, but did so for both abstract and concrete words. Our results provide evidence that emotion and sensorimotor systems are important to children's acquisition of abstract words, but there is still considerable variance to be accounted for by other factors. We offer suggestions for future research to examine the acquisition of abstract vocabulary.

The multidimensionality of abstract concepts: A systematic review

The neuroscientific study of conceptual representation has largely focused on categories of concrete entities (biological entities, tools…), while abstract knowledge has been less extensively investigated. The possible presence of a categorical organization of abstract knowledge is a debated issue. An embodied cognition framework predicts an organization of the abstract domain into different dimensions, grounded in the brain regions engaged by the corresponding experience. Here we review the types of experience that have been proposed to characterize different categories of abstract concepts, and the evidence supporting a corresponding organization derived from behavioural, neuroimaging (i.e., fMRI, MRI, PET, SPECT), EEG, and neurostimulation (i.e., TMS) studies in healthy and clinical populations. The available data provide substantial converging evidence in favour of the presence of distinct neural representations of social and emotional knowledge, mental states and magnitude concepts, engaging brain systems involved in the corresponding experiences. This evidence is supporting an extension of embodied models of semantic memory organization to several types of abstract knowledge.

Neuroimaging of valence decisions in children and adults

To date, the neural underpinnings of affective components in language processing in children remain largely unknown. To fill this gap, the present study examined behavioural and neural correlates of children and adults performing the same auditory valence decision task with an event-related fMRI paradigm. Based on previous findings in adults, activations in anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus were expected for both positive and negative valence categories. Recent behavioural findings on valence decisions showed similar ratings and reaction time patterns in children and adults. This finding was successfully replicated in the present study. On a neural level, our analysis of affective language processing showed activations in regions associated with both semantic (superior and middle temporal and frontal) and affective (anterior and posterior cingulate, orbitofrontal and inferior frontal, insula and amygdala) processing. Neural activations in children and adults were systematically different in explicit affective word processing. In particular, adults showed a more distributed semantic network activation while children recruited additional subcortical structures.

Increased Recruitment of Domain-General Neural Networks in Language Processing Following Intensive Language-Action Therapy: fMRI Evidence From People With Chronic Aphasia

Purpose This study aimed to provide novel insights into the neural correlates of language improvement following intensive language-action therapy (ILAT; also known as constraint-induced aphasia therapy). Method Sixteen people with chronic aphasia underwent clinical aphasia assessment (Aachen Aphasia Test [AAT]), as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), both administered before (T1) and after ILAT (T2). The fMRI task included passive reading of single written words, with hashmark strings as visual baseline. Results Behavioral results indicated significant improvements of AAT scores across therapy, and fMRI results showed T2-T1 blood oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signal change in the left precuneus to be modulated by the degree of AAT score increase. Subsequent region-of-interest analysis of this precuneus cluster confirmed a positive correlation of T2-T1 BOLD signal change and improvement on the clinical aphasia test. Similarly, the entire default mode network revealed a positive correlation between T2-T1 BOLD signal change and clinical language improvement. Conclusion These results are consistent with a more efficient recruitment of domain-general neural networks in language processing, including those involved in attentional control, following aphasia therapy with ILAT. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12765755.

Sensorimotor and interoceptive dimensions in concrete and abstract concepts

Recent theories propose that abstract concepts, compared to concrete ones, might activate to a larger extent interoceptive, social and linguistic experiences. At the same time, recent research has underlined the importance of investigating how different sub-kinds of abstract concepts are represented. We report a pre-registered experiment, preceded by a pilot study, in which we asked participants to evaluate the difficulty of 3 kinds of concrete concepts (natural objects, tools, and food concepts) and abstract concepts (Philosophical and Spiritual concepts, PS, Physical Space Time and Quantity concepts, PSTQ, and Emotional, Mental State and Social concepts, EMSS). While rating the words, participants were assigned to different conditions designed to interfere with conceptual processing: they were required to squeeze a ball (hand motor system activation), to chew gum (mouth motor system activation), to self-estimate their heartbeats (interoception), and to perform a motor articulatory task (inner speech involvement). In a control condition they simply rated the difficulty of words. A possible interference should result in the increase of the difficulty ratings. Bayesian analyses reveal that, compared to concrete ones, abstract concepts are more grounded in interoceptive experience and concrete concepts less in linguistic experience (mouth motor system involvement), and that the experience on which different kinds of abstract and concrete concepts differs widely. For example, within abstract concepts interoception plays a major role for EMSS and PS concepts, while the ball squeezing condition interferes more for PSTQ concepts, confirming that PSTQ are the most concrete among abstract concepts, and tap into sensorimotor manual experience. Implications of the results for current theories of conceptual representation are discussed.

Acquisition of concrete and abstract words is modulated by tDCS of Wernicke's area

Previous behavioural and neuroimaging research suggested distinct cortical systems involved in processing abstract and concrete semantics; however, there is a dearth of causal evidence to support this. To address this, we applied anodal, cathodal, or sham (placebo) tDCS over Wernicke’s area before a session of contextual learning of novel concrete and abstract words (n = 10 each), presented five times in short stories. Learning effects were assessed at lexical and semantic levels immediately after the training and, to attest any consolidation effects of overnight sleep, on the next day. We observed successful learning of all items immediately after the session, with decreased performance in Day 2 assessment. Importantly, the results differed between stimulation conditions and tasks. Whereas the accuracy of semantic judgement for abstract words was significantly lower in the sham and anodal groups on Day 2 vs. Day 1, no significant performance drop was observed in the cathodal group. Similarly, the cathodal group showed no significant overnight performance reduction in the free recall task for either of the stimuli, unlike the other two groups. Furthermore, between-group analysis showed an overall better performance of both tDCS groups over the sham group, particularly expressed for abstract semantics and cathodal stimulation. In sum, the results suggest overlapping but diverging brain mechanisms for concrete and abstract semantics and indicate a larger degree of involvement of core language areas in storing abstract knowledge. Furthermore, they demonstrate a possiblity to improve learning outcomes using neuromodulatory techniques.

Action verbs drive motor activity in adolescents but not in children

In adults, grip force has reliably been used to investigate motor simulation evoked by linguistic action, suggesting that motor phenomena are linked to semantic action. The parietal and frontal lobes and their connexions are essential neural structures for pragmatic aspects of hand semantic action. In this perspective, the aim of the study was to determine the extent to which two groups of children and adolescents, classically characterized by degree of axonal myelination in fronto-parietal circuits, monitored the occurrence of nouns and manual action verbs presented auditorily while holding a grip force sensor. Differential effects of grip force were seen only in the adolescents when monitoring action verbs. Interestingly, weaker effects of grip force were modulated by noun targets only in the younger children, revealing that the ability to profit from a full semantic representation of verbs is not clearly established in the younger children. Grip force modulation was observed as early as 300 ms post target onset and peaked at the 500-750 ms window of observation for both groups. These group differences are in line with the motor simulation difficulties seen in younger children. The results may also indicate that degree of grip force in response to specific linguistic categories parallels the maturation of the parietal-frontal circuits, including the anterior intra-parietal area which plays a determining role in semantic aspects of hand action.

Heterogeneity in abstract verbs: An ERP study

It has been well documented that different types of nouns and action verbs are associated with behavioral and neural differences. In contrast, abstract verbs (e.g., think, dissolve) are often treated as a homogeneous category. We compared event-related potentials recorded during a syntactic classification task of four verb types; 1) abstract mental, 2) abstract emotional, 3) abstract nonbodily, and 4) concrete. Abstract nonbodily state verbs showed a sustained negativity at frontocentral electrodes and sustained positivity at parietal and occipital electrodes beginning 400 ms post-stimulus onset relative to abstract mental state and concrete verbs. Discrete source localization revealed a right inferior parietal source for all verbs and a distributed source estimation localized sources that distinguished between abstract mental state and abstract nonbodily state verbs to bilateral parietal cortex, left temporal cortex and right ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that different types of abstract verbs are associated with representational differences.

A Future of Words: Language and the Challenge of Abstract Concepts

The paper outlines one of the most important challenges that embodied and grounded theories need to face, i.e., that to explain how abstract concepts (abstractness) are acquired, represented, and used. I illustrate the view according to which abstract concepts are grounded not only in sensorimotor experiences, like concrete concepts, but also and to a greater extent in linguistic, social, and inner experiences. Specifically, I discuss the role played by metacognition, inner speech, social metacognition, and interoception. I also present evidence showing that the weight of linguistic, social, and inner experiences varies depending on the considered sub-kind of abstract concepts (e.g., mental states and spiritual concepts, numbers, emotions, social concepts). I argue that the challenge to explain abstract concepts representation implies the recognition of: a. the role of language, intended as inner and social tool, in shaping our mind; b. the importance of differences across languages; c. the existence of different kinds of abstract concepts; d. the necessity to adopt new paradigms, able to capture the use of abstract concepts in context and interactive situations. This challenge should be addressed with an integrated approach that bridges developmental, anthropological, and neuroscientific studies. This approach extends embodied and grounded views incorporating insights from distributional statistics views of meaning, from pragmatics and semiotics.

Time course of brain activity during the processing of motor- and vision-related abstract concepts: flexibility and task dependency

Grounded cognition theories assume that conceptual processing depends on modality-specific brain systems in a context-dependent fashion. Although the relation of abstract concepts to modality-specific systems is less obvious than for concrete concepts, recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies indicated a foundation of abstract concepts in vision and action. However, due to their poor temporal resolution, neuroimaging studies cannot determine whether sensorimotor activity reflects rapid access to conceptual information or later conceptual processes. The present study therefore assessed the time course of abstract concept processing using event-related potentials (ERPs) and compared ERP responses to abstract concepts with a strong relation to vision or action. We tested whether possible ERP effects to abstract word categories would emerge in early or in later time windows and whether these effects would depend on the depth of the conceptual task. In Experiment 1, a shallow lexical decision task, early feature-specific effects starting at 178 ms were revealed, but later effects beyond 300 ms were also observed. In Experiment 2, a deep conceptual decision task, feature-specific effects with an onset of 22 ms were obtained, but effects again extended beyond 300 ms. In congruency with earlier neuroimaging work, the present feature-specific ERP effects suggest a grounding of abstract concepts in modal brain systems. The presence of early and late feature-specific effects indicates that sensorimotor activity observed in neuroimaging experiments may reflect both rapid conceptual and later post-conceptual processing. Results furthermore suggest that a deep conceptual task accelerates access to conceptual sensorimotor features, thereby demonstrating conceptual flexibility.

Touch me if you can: The intangible but grounded nature of abstract concepts

Thinking about what the senses cannot grasp is one of the hallmarks of human cognition. We argue that "intangible abstracta" are represented differently from other products of abstraction, that goal-derived categorization supports their learning, and that they are grounded also in internalized linguistic and social interaction. We conclude by suggesting different ways in which abstractness contributes to cement group cohesion.

Predicting reading ability from brain anatomy and function: From areas to connections

Reading is a complex task involving different brain areas. As a crystallized ability, reading is also known to have effects on brain structure and function development. However, there are still open questions about what are the elements of the reading networks and how structural and functional brain measures shape the reading ability. The present study used a data-driven approach to investigate whether reading-related brain structural measures of cortical thickness, myelination, sulcus depth and structural connectivity and functional connectivity from the whole brain can predict individual differences in reading skills. It used different brain measures and performance scores from the Oral Reading Recognition Test (ORRT) measuring reading ability from 998 participants. We revealed reading-related brain areas and connections, and evaluated how well area and connection measures predict reading performance. Interestingly, the combination of all brain measures obtained the best predictions. We further grouped reading-related areas into positive and negative networks, each with four different levels (Core Regions, Extended-Regions 1, 2, 3), representing different correlation levels with the reading scores, and the non-correlated Region irrelevant to reading ability. The Core Regions are composed of areas that are most strongly correlated with reading performance. Insular and frontal opercular cortex, lateral temporal cortex, and early auditory cortex occupy the positive Core Region, while inferior temporal and motor cortex occupy the negative Core Region. Aside from those areas, the present study also found more reading-related areas including visual and language-related areas. In addition, connections predicting reading scores are denser inside the reading-related networks than outside. Together, the present study reveals extended reading networks of the brain and provides an extended data-driven analytical framework to study interpretable brain-behavior relationships, which are transferable also to studying other abilities.

Anticipatory feelings: Neural correlates and linguistic markers

This review introduces anticipatory feelings (AF) as a new construct related to the process of anticipation and prediction of future events. AF, defined as the state of awareness of physiological and neurocognitive changes that occur within an oganism in the form of a process of adapting to future events, are an important component of anticipation and expectancy. They encompass bodily-related interoceptive and affective components and are influenced by intrapersonal and dispositional factors, such as optimism, hope, pessimism, or worry. In the present review, we consider evidence from animal and human research, including neuroimaging studies, to characterize the brain structures and brain networks involved in AF. The majority of studies reviewed revealed three brain regions involved in future oriented feelings: 1) the insula; 2) the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC); and 3) the amygdala. Moreover, these brain regions were confirmed by a meta-analysis, using a platform for large-scale, automated synthesis of fMRI data. Finally, by adopting a neurolinguistic and a big data approach, we illustrate how AF are expressed in language.

The role of motor system in action-related language comprehension in L1 and L2: An fMRI study

The framework of embodied cognition has challenged the modular view of a language-cognition divide by suggesting that meaning-retrieval critically involves the sensory-motor system. Despite extensive research into the neural mechanisms underlying language-motor coupling, it remains unclear how the motor system might be differentially engaged by different levels of linguistic abstraction and language proficiency. To address this issue, we used fMRI to quantify neural activations in brain regions underlying motor and language processing in Chinese-English speakers' processing of literal, metaphorical, and abstract language in their L1 and L2. Results overall revealed a response in motor ROIs gradually attenuating in intensity from literal to abstract via metaphorical language in both L1 and L2. Furthermore, contrast analyses between L1 and L2 showed overall greater activations of motor ROIs in the L2. We conclude that motor involvement in language processing is graded rather than all-or-none and that the motor system has a dual-functional role.

Vector-Space Models of Semantic Representation From a Cognitive Perspective: A Discussion of Common Misconceptions

Models that represent meaning as high-dimensional numerical vectors—such as latent semantic analysis (LSA), hyperspace analogue to language (HAL), bound encoding of the aggregate language environment (BEAGLE), topic models, global vectors (GloVe), and word2vec—have been introduced as extremely powerful machine-learning proxies for human semantic representations and have seen an explosive rise in popularity over the past 2 decades. However, despite their considerable advancements and spread in the cognitive sciences, one can observe problems associated with the adequate presentation and understanding of some of their features. Indeed, when these models are examined from a cognitive perspective, a number of unfounded arguments tend to appear in the psychological literature. In this article, we review the most common of these arguments and discuss (a) what exactly these models represent at the implementational level and their plausibility as a cognitive theory, (b) how they deal with various aspects of meaning such as polysemy or compositionality, and (c) how they relate to the debate on embodied and grounded cognition. We identify common misconceptions that arise as a result of incomplete descriptions, outdated arguments, and unclear distinctions between theory and implementation of the models. We clarify and amend these points to provide a theoretical basis for future research and discussions on vector models of semantic representation.

Love is a physiological motivation (like hunger, thirst, sleep or sex)

The multitude of terms associated with love has given rise to a false perception of love. In this paper, only maternal and romantic love are considered. Love is usually regarded as a feeling, motivation, addiction, passion, and, above all, an emotion. This confusion has consequences in the lives of human beings, leading not only to divorces, suicides, femicides but possibly also to a number of mental illnesses and suffering. Therefore, it is crucial to first clarify what is meant by emotion, motivation and love. This work aims to finally place love within the category of physiological motivations, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, or sex, on the basis that love is also essential for human survival, especially in childhood. Love is presented from an evolutionary perspective. Some other similarities between love and other physiological motivations are pointed out, such as its importance for appropriate human development, both its ontogeny and its permanence, and the long-lasting consequences of abuse and neglect. There are summarized reasons that account for this, such as the fact that physiological motivations are essential for survival and that love is an essential motivation for the survival of human offspring. Other reasons are that minimum changes in the quantity and quality of love alters development, that there can be a variety of neurophysiological and behavioural states within a motivation, and that motivations (also love) appear and change throughout development. Also, motivations and love sometimes may lead to an addictive behaviour. Finally, it is recognized that once physiological motivations (and love) appear, they become permanent. In a third section, some potential social, cultural, clinical and scientific consequences of the proposed consideration of love as a motivation are discussed. Accordingly, love's recognition as a motivation in the clinical field would imply a better understanding of its disorders and its inclusion in classifications manuals such as The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), or in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Considering love as a motivation rather than an emotion could also impact the results of scientific research (an example is included). A comprehensive understanding of these questions could potentially allow for a new therapeutic approach in the treatment of mental illness, while offering an all-inclusive evolutionary explanation of cultural phenomena such as the origin and diffusion of both language and art. Love should be understood as a physiological motivation, like hunger, sleep or sex, and not as an emotion as it is commonly considered.

Concrete vs. Abstract Semantics: From Mental Representations to Functional Brain Mapping

The nature of abstract and concrete semantics and differences between them have remained a debated issue in psycholinguistic and cognitive studies for decades. Most of the available behavioral and neuroimaging studies reveal distinctions between these two types of semantics, typically associated with a so-called “concreteness effect.” Many attempts have been made to explain these differences using various approaches, from purely theoretical linguistic and cognitive frameworks to neuroimaging experiments. In this brief overview, we will try to provide a snapshot of these diverse views and relationships between them and highlight the crucial issues preventing this problem from being solved. We will argue that one potentially beneficial way forward is to identify the neural mechanisms underpinning acquisition of the different types of semantics (e.g., by using neurostimulation techniques to establish causal relationships), which may help explain the distinctions found between the processing of concrete and abstract semantics.

Distinguishing abstract from concrete concepts in supramodal brain regions

Concrete words have been shown to have a processing advantage over abstract words, yet theoretical accounts and neural correlates underlying the distinction between concrete and abstract concepts are still unresolved. In an fMRI study, participants performed a property verification task on abstract and concrete concepts. Property comparisons of concrete concepts were predominantly based on either visual or haptic features. Multivariate pattern analysis successfully distinguished between abstract and concrete stimulus comparisons at the whole brain level. Multivariate searchlight analyses showed that posterior and middle cingulate cortices contained information that distinguished abstract from concrete concepts regardless of feature dominance. These results support the view that supramodal convergence zones play an important role in representation of concrete and abstract concepts.

How meaning unfolds in neural time: Embodied reactivations can precede multimodal semantic effects during language processing

Research on how the brain construes meaning during language use has prompted two conflicting accounts. According to the 'grounded view', word understanding involves quick reactivations of sensorimotor (embodied) experiences evoked by the stimuli, with simultaneous or later engagement of multimodal (conceptual) systems integrating information from various sensory streams. Contrariwise, for the 'symbolic view', this capacity depends crucially on multimodal operations, with embodied systems playing epiphenomenal roles after comprehension. To test these contradictory hypotheses, the present magnetoencephalography study assessed implicit semantic access to grammatically constrained action and non-action verbs (n = 100 per category) while measuring spatiotemporally precise signals from the primary motor cortex (M1, a core region subserving bodily movements) and the anterior temporal lobe (ATL, a putative multimodal semantic hub). Convergent evidence from sensor- and source-level analyses revealed that increased modulations for action verbs occurred earlier in M1 (∼130-190 ms) than in specific ATL hubs (∼250-410 ms). Moreover, machine-learning decoding showed that trial-by-trial classification peaks emerged faster in M1 (∼100-175 ms) than in the ATL (∼345-500 ms), with over 71% accuracy in both cases. Considering their latencies, these results challenge the 'symbolic view' and its implication that sensorimotor mechanisms play only secondary roles in semantic processing. Instead, our findings support the 'grounded view', showing that early semantic effects are critically driven by embodied reactivations and that these cannot be reduced to post-comprehension epiphenomena, even when words are individually classified. Briefly, our study offers non-trivial insights to constrain fine-grained models of language and understand how meaning unfolds in neural time.

Moving beyond the distinction between concrete and abstract concepts

From the perspective of the situated conceptualization framework, the primary purpose of concepts is for categorizing and integrating elements of situations to support goal-directed action (including communication and social interaction). To the extent that important situational elements are categorized and integrated properly, effective goal-directed action follows. Over time, frequent patterns of co-occurring concepts within situations become established in memory as situated conceptualizations, conditioning the conceptual system and producing habitual patterns of conceptual processing. As a consequence, individual concepts are most basically represented within patterns of concepts that become entrained with specific kinds of physical situations. In this framework, the concrete versus abstract distinction between concepts is no longer useful, with two other distinctions becoming important instead: (i) external versus internal situational elements, (ii) situational elements versus situational integrations. Whereas concepts for situational elements originate in distributed neural networks that provide continual feeds about components of situations, concepts for situational integrations originate in association areas that establish temporal co-occurrence relations between situational elements, both external and internal. We propose that studying concepts in the context of situated action is necessary for establishing complete accounts of them, and that continuing to study concepts in isolation is likely to provide relatively incomplete and distorted accounts.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Embodied Semantics in a Second Language: Critical Review and Clinical Implications

The role of the sensorimotor system in second language (L2) semantic processing as well as its clinical implications for bilingual patients has hitherto been neglected. We offer an overview of the issues at stake in this under-investigated field, presenting the theoretical and clinical relevance of studying L2 embodiment and reviewing the few studies on this topic. We highlight that (a) the sensorimotor network is involved in L2 processing, and that (b) in most studies, L2 is differently embodied than L1, reflected in a lower degree or in a different pattern of L2 embodiment. Importantly, we outline critical issues to be addressed in order to guide future research. We also delineate the subsequent steps needed to confirm or dismiss the value of language therapeutic approaches based on embodiment theories as a complement of speech and language therapies in adult bilinguals.

Connection between movements of mouth and hand: Perspectives on development and evolution of speech

Mounting evidence shows interaction between manipulative hand movements and movements of tongue, lips and mouth in a vocal and non-vocal context. The current article reviews this evidence and discusses its contribution to perspectives of development and evolution of speech. In particular, the article aims to present novel insight on how processes controlling the two primary grasp components of manipulative hand movements, the precision and power grip, might be systematically connected to motor processes involved in producing certain articulatory gestures. This view assumes that due to these motor overlaps between grasping and articulation, development of these grip types in infancy can facilitate development of specific articulatory gestures. In addition, the hand-mouth connections might have even boosted the evolution of some articulatory gestures. This account also proposes that some semantic sound-symbolic pairings between a speech sound and a referent concept might be partially based on these hand-mouth interactions.

Abstract, emotional and concrete concepts and the activation of mouth-hand effectors

According to embodied and grounded theories, concepts are grounded in sensorimotor systems. The majority of evidence supporting these views concerns concepts referring to objects or actions, while evidence on abstract concepts is more scarce. Explaining how abstract concepts such as “freedom” are represented would thus be pivotal for grounded theories. According to some recent proposals, abstract concepts are grounded in both sensorimotor and linguistic experience, thus they activate the mouth motor system more than concrete concepts. Two experiments are reported, aimed at verifying whether abstract, concrete and emotional words activate the mouth and the hand effectors. In both experiments participants performed first a lexical decision, then a recognition task. In Experiment 1 participants responded by pressing a button either with the mouth or with the hand, in Experiment 2 responses were given with the foot, while a button held either in the mouth or in the hand was used to respond to catch-trials. Abstract words were slower to process in both tasks (concreteness effect). Across the tasks and experiments, emotional concepts had instead a fluctuating pattern, different from those of both concrete and abstract concepts, suggesting that they cannot be considered as a subset of abstract concepts. The interaction between type of concept (abstract, concrete and emotional) and effector (mouth, hand) was not significant in the lexical decision task, likely because it emerged only with tasks implying a deeper processing level. It reached significance, instead, in the recognition tasks. In both experiments abstract concepts were facilitated in the mouth condition compared to the hand condition, supporting our main prediction. Emotional concepts instead had a more variable pattern. Overall, our findings indicate that various kinds of concepts differently activate the mouth and hand effectors, but they also suggest that concepts activate effectors in a flexible and task-dependent way.

Information-Processing Model of Concept Formation – Is First Language Acquisition Universal?

The analysis of child’s speech corpora shows that the process of acquisition of English and French displays identical development of children’s expressions when the speech-utterances are presented as Fibonacci-weighted classes of concepts. A model of concept complexity and information processing based on principles of optimality is proposed to explain this statistical result.

Compound Words Reflect Cross-Culturally Shared Bodily Metaphors

Parts of the body are often embedded in the structure of compound words, such as heartbreak and brainchild. We explored the relationships between the semantics of compounds and their constituent body parts, asking whether these relationships are largely arbitrary or instead reflect deeper metaphorical mappings shared across languages and cultures. In three studies, we found that U.S. English speakers associated the English translation equivalents of Chinese compounds with their constituent body parts at rates well above chance, even for compounds with highly abstract meanings and even when accounting for the semantic relatedness of the compounds and body parts. English speakers in India and Chinese speakers in Hong Kong showed similar intuitions about these associations. Our results suggest that the structure of compound words can provide insight into cross-culturally shared ways of connecting meaning to the body.

The case of CAUSE: neurobiological mechanisms for grounding an abstract concept

How can we understand causal relationships and how can we understand words such as 'cause'? Some theorists assume that the underlying abstract concept is given to us, and that perceptual correlation provides the relevant hints towards inferring causation from perceived real-life events. A different approach emphasizes the role of actions and their typical consequences for the emergence of the concept of causation and the application of the related term. A model of causation is proposed that highlights the family resemblance between causal actions and postulates that symbols are necessary for binding together the different partially shared semantic features of subsets of causal actions and their goals. Linguistic symbols are proposed to play a key role in binding the different subsets of semantic features of the abstract concept. The model is spelt out at the neuromechanistic level of distributed cortical circuits and the cognitive functions they carry. The model is discussed in light of behavioural and neuroscience evidence, and questions for future research are highlighted. In sum, taking causation as a concrete example, I argue that abstract concepts and words can be learnt and grounded in real-life interaction, and that the neurobiological mechanisms realizing such abstract semantic grounding are within our grasp.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Abstract concepts, language and sociality: from acquisition to inner speech

The problem of representation of abstract concepts, such as 'freedom' and 'justice', has become particularly crucial in recent years, owing to the increased success of embodied and grounded views of cognition. We will present a novel view on abstract concepts and abstract words. Since abstract concepts do not have single objects as referents, children and adults might rely more on input from others to learn them; we, therefore, suggest that linguistic and social experience play an important role for abstract concepts. We will discuss evidence obtained in our and other laboratories showing that processing of abstract concepts evokes linguistic interaction and social experiences, leading to the activation of the mouth motor system. We will discuss the possible mechanisms that underlie this activation. Mouth motor system activation can be due to re-enactment of the experience of conceptual acquisition, which occurred through the mediation of language. Alternatively, it could be due to the re-explanation of the word meaning, possibly through inner speech. Finally, it can be due to a metacognitive process revealing low confidence in the meaning of our concepts. This process induces in us the need to rely on others to ask/negotiate conceptual meaning. We conclude that with abstract concepts language works as a social tool: it extends our thinking abilities and pushes us to rely on others to integrate our knowledge.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use, and representation in the brain'.

Sensorimotor lateralization scaffolds cognitive specialization

In this chapter, we review hemispheric differences for sensorimotor function and cognitive abilities. Specifically, we examine the left-hemisphere specialization for visuomotor control and its interplay with language, executive function, and musical training. Similarly, we discuss right-hemisphere lateralization for haptic processing and its relationship to spatial and numerical processing. We propose that cerebral lateralization for sensorimotor functions served as a foundation for the development of higher cognitive abilities and their hemispheric functional specialization. We further suggest that sensorimotor and cognitive functions are inextricably linked. Based on the studies discussed in this chapter our view is that sensorimotor control serves as a loom upon which the fibers of language, executive function, spatial, and numerical processing are woven together to create the fabric of cognition.

The mental simulation of state/psychological verbs in the adolescent brain: An fMRI study

This fMRI study investigated mental simulation of state/psychological and action verbs during adolescence. Sixteen healthy subjects silently read verbs describing a motor scene or not (STIMULUS: motor, state/psychological verbs) and they were explicitly asked to imagine the situation or they performed letter detection preventing them from using simulation (TASK: imagery vs. letter detection). A significant task by stimuli interaction showed that imagery of state/psychological verbs, as compared to action stimuli (controlled by the letter detection) selectively increased activation in the right supramarginal gyrus/rolandic operculum and in the right insula, and decreased activation in the right intraparietal sulcus. We compared these data to those from a group of older participants (Tomasino et al. 2014a). Activation in the left supramarginal gyrus decreased for the latter group (as compared to the present group) for imagery of state/psychological verbs. By contrast, activation in the right superior frontal gyrus decreased for the former group (as compared to the older group) for imagery of state/psychological verbs.