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.

That means something to me: How linguistic and emotional experience affect the acquisition, representation, and processing of novel abstract concepts.

“…An additional analysis of familiarity ratings (see ) showed that a higher subjective familiarity mirrored the successful acquisition. Our findings are in line with training studies, which induced novel word meaning based on a single training session with concrete versus abstract concepts (Kurmakaeva et al, 2021; Mkrtychian et al, 2021; Palmer et al, 2013). We attribute the participant's high learning success partially to a high motivation and compliance of our sample, based on anecdotal feedback of our participants that the study was “fun.” By establishing a causal link to the linguistic experience, our findings further support the notion that linguistic experience is sufficient for acquiring and thus possibly grounding abstract concepts comparably to how sensorimotor experience forms and grounds concrete concepts (Borghi & Zarcone, 2016; Hoffman, 2016).…”

“…An additional analysis of familiarity ratings (see Section E in the online supplemental materials) showed that a higher subjective familiarity mirrored the successful acquisition. Our findings are in line with training studies, which induced novel word meaning based on a single training session with concrete versus abstract concepts (Kurmakaeva et al, 2021;Mkrtychian et al, 2021;Palmer et al, 2013). We attribute the participant's high learning success partially to a high motivation and compliance of our sample, based on anecdotal feedback of our participants that the study was "fun."…”

“…Palmer et al (2013) found a general learning and processing advantage for novel concrete over abstract words in a semantic categorization as well as a lexical decision task after only one training session pairing unknown, rare English words with their definitions. In contrast, Kurmakaeva et al (2021) and Mkrtychian et al (2021) found a higher free recall accuracy and shorter LDT reaction times for novel abstract than concrete words after one training session with contextual learning from five-sentence short stories. Moreover, Kurmakaeva et al found that stimulating core language areas with transcranial direct current specifically supports storing abstract knowledge.…”

“…Concerning the role of emotionality, two training studies found a learning and processing advantage of (positive) emotional valence in the concrete domain based on a training with pictures of novel objects (Frances et al, 2020) or with novel words substituting concrete concepts in linguistic contexts (Snefjella et al, 2020). To our knowledge, only three studies induced a novel (i.e., unknown) meaning for novel concrete and abstract words in purely linguistic training paradigms (Kurmakaeva et al, 2021; Mkrtychian et al, 2021; Palmer et al, 2013). Palmer et al (2013) found a general learning and processing advantage for novel concrete over abstract words in a semantic categorization as well as a lexical decision task after only one training session pairing unknown, rare English words with their definitions.…”

Neuroscience in the system of vocational education

“…Например, в ходе исследования было выявлено, что студенты лучше усваивают значения новых конкретных понятий и словоформы -абстрактных. Это указывает на то, что в обработке и запоминании разных типов семантики, вероятно, участвуют различные механизмы, в том числе и на нейронном уровне (Mkrtychian et al, 2021a). Подтверждением сказанного могут служить обнаруженные различия в ЭЭГ (Mkrtychian et al, 2021b) при усвоении конкретной и абстрактной терминологии, которые проявляются на относительно ранних стадиях (в интервале 136-156 мс) и локализуются в правом полушарии.…”