Abstract Concepts and Metacognition: Searching for Meaning in Self and Others

Borghi, Anna M.; Fini, Chiara; Tummolini, Luca

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-78471-3_9

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…It has been recently proposed that a higher cohesion level characterizes groups that define their beliefs in terms of abstract ideas [47]. It is possible that the social metacognition mechanism we identified contributes to increasing cohesion between people [48], and the evidence we obtained supports this view.…”

Section: Conceptual Processing and Social Interactionsupporting

confidence: 73%

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

Fini¹,

Era²,

Darold³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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concepts (e.g. “justice”) differ from concrete concepts (e.g. “table”) because they are more detached from exteroceptive and more grounded in interoceptive experience, they do not possess a single object as referent, and they assemble quite heterogeneous members. Recent views have hypothesized that interpersonal communication is particularly crucial to acquire and use abstract concepts. The current study investigates the impact of abstract/concrete concepts representation over interpersonal behavior. 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: one helped in guessing abstract concepts and the other concrete ones. Participants asked more hints with abstract concepts and were more synchronous when interacting with the avatar corresponding to the abstract concept’s confederate. The results highlight an important role of sociality in grounding abstract concepts.

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Section: Conceptual Processing and Social Interactionsupporting

confidence: 73%

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

Fini¹,

Era²,

Darold³

et al. 2020

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…Consider what happens when we read or listen to an abstract concept expressed by an abstract word. As argued elsewhere (Borghi, 2020;Borghi et al, 2021), we might experience more uncertainties in grasping the meaning of abstract than of concrete words: for example, we might be unsure of the correct meaning of the word "democracy." Even in the cases in which we feel we know the word meaning, we might be unsure whether and to what extent the meaning we know is shared with others.…”

Section: Abstract Concepts and Social Affordancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this situation in which we need help, others can scaffold us; they represent anchors that help us clarify or redefine more clearly and compellingly the conceptual meaning. We have argued elsewhere that because we feel we need others more, we might tend to be more collaborative with them (Borghi et al, 2021). The presence of other people can thus offer affordances from which we benefit.…”

Section: Abstract Concepts and Social Affordancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merging affordances and (abstract) concepts

Borghi¹

2022

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The notion of affordance posits important challenges for the investigation of language and abstractconcepts. Studies on affordances and language indicate that language is grounded in the sensorimotorsystem and also that language filters and selects information derived from affordances. Literature onaffordances can be relevant for the comprehension of concepts, and particularly of abstract ones, for atleast two reasons. First, affordances might play a role in the emergence of abstract concepts (e.g.,freedom). When forming abstract concepts, we avoid focusing on object affordances and collect thecategorical exemplars based on affordances relying on common sociocultural practices. Second, because tolearn and use abstract concepts we might need other people more than to acquire and use concreteconcepts, other people might evoke social affordances. These processes might be differently modulated byvarious kinds of affordances (e.g., motor, sociocultural) and vary depending on the considered kind ofabstract concepts.

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“…Once we have realised that such a meaning representation is not available, we would use the mouth motor system to prepare ourselves to ask information to others through outer speech, because we are aware of the inadequacy of our concepts ("social metacognition" mechanism) (Borghi et al, 2018a(Borghi et al, , 2020Fini & Borghi, 2019).…”

Section: Abstract Concept and Mouth Motor Activationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, suppose that I have some partial information derived from different sources on what “atom” means. Inner speech would help us to put this sparse information together in an ordered way aiming to determine what the word “atom” really means and whether it is concrete or abstract (for more details on a possible role of inner speech with abstract concepts, see Borghi, 2020; Borghi et al, 2020). We are not arguing that participants would use this mechanism to decide whether a word is abstract or concrete, but to access the word meaning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Articulatory suppression delays processing of abstract words: The role of inner speech

Fini

Zannino

Orsoni

et al. 2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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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.

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Abstract Concepts and Metacognition: Searching for Meaning in Self and Others

Cited by 22 publications

References 76 publications

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

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

Merging affordances and (abstract) concepts

Articulatory suppression delays processing of abstract words: The role of inner speech

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