The linguistic and embodied nature of conceptual processing

Louwerse, Max M.; Jeuniaux, Patrick

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.09.002

Cited by 165 publications

(207 citation statements)

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“…The present results are broadly compatible with proposals that the representation of word meaning involves multiple systems; in particular, linguistic and perceptual systems (Dove, 2011;Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2010;Paivio, 1986Paivio, , 2007. For instance, the language-andsituated-simulation theory (Barsalou, Santos, Simmons, & Wilson, 2008;Simmons, Hamann, Harenski, Hu, & Barsalou, 2008) holds that both the language and modal systems are important for conceptual representation (see also Andrews, Vigliocco, & Vinson, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Grasping the invisible: Semantic processing of abstract words

Zdrazilova

Pexman

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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The problem of how abstract word meanings are represented has been a challenging one. In the present study, we extended the semantic richness approach (e.g., Yap, Tan, Pexman, & Hargreaves in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 18:742-750, 2011) to abstract words, examining the effects of six semantic richness variables on lexical-semantic processing for 207 abstract nouns. The candidate richness dimensions were context availability (CA), sensory experience rating (SER), valence, arousal, semantic neighborhood (SN), and number of associates (NoA). The behavioral tasks were lexical decision (LDT) and semantic categorization (SCT). Our results showed that the semantic richness variables were significantly related to both LDT and SCT latencies, even after lexical and orthographic factors were controlled. The patterns of richness effects varied across tasks, with CA effects in the LDT, and SER and valence effects in the SCT. These results provide new insight into how abstract meanings may be grounded, and are consistent with a dynamic, multidimensional framework for semantic processing.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Grasping the invisible: Semantic processing of abstract words

Zdrazilova

Pexman

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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“…For example, the order of word distribution in English is highly directional (e.g., "root" tends to be mentioned before "branch" more often than vice versa). Louwerse and Jeuniaux (2010) showed that people are influenced by this directional linguistic information when making judgements about the spatial location of objects. When asked whether a "branch" typically occurs above a "root", both speed and accuracy of responses were influenced by linguistic information about word order, even when this word order was inconsistent with spatial configurations in the real world (i.e., "root"…"branch" is the typical word order, even though branch…root is the typical spatial configuration).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Empirical evidence for its utility in conceptual processing has come from a range of tasks, including property verification (Louwerse & Connell, 2011), property generation (Santos, Chaigneau, Simmons, & Barsalou, 2011;Simmons, Hamann, Harenski, Hu, & Barsalou, 2008), conceptual combination , semantic relatedness and spatial iconicity (Louwerse & Hutchinson, 2012;Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2010), metaphor comprehension Liu, Connell & Lynott, 2018), and SNARC effects (Hutchinson & Louwerse, 2014). For example, the order of word distribution in English is highly directional (e.g., "root" tends to be mentioned before "branch" more often than vice versa).…”

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confidence: 99%

What have labels ever done for us? The linguistic shortcut in conceptual processing

Connell

2018

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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How does language affect cognition? Is it important that most of our concepts come with linguistic labels, such as car or number? The statistical distributions of how such labels co-occur in language offers a rich medium of associative information that can support conceptual processing in a number of ways. In this article, I argue that the role of language in conceptual processing goes far beyond mere support, and that language is as fundamental and intrinsic a part of conceptual processing as sensorimotor-affective simulations. In particular, because linguistic association tends to be computationally cheaper than simulation (i.e., faster, less effortful, but still information-rich), it enables an heuristic mechanism that can provide adequate conceptual representation without the need to develop a detailed simulation. I review the evidence for this key mechanism -the linguistic shortcut -and propose that it allows labels to sometimes carry the burden of conceptual processing by acting in place of simulated referent meanings, according to context, available resources, and processing goals.Keywords: concepts, language, representation, linguistic distributional information, simulation LABELS IN CONCEPTUAL PROCESSING 3 What Have Labels Ever Done For Us? The Linguistic Shortcut in Conceptual ProcessingAll right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? (Life of Brian: Goldstone & Jones, 1979) A concept in long-term memory is an aggregate of experience that receives frequent attention and can be re-activated relatively easily in offline processing as an instantiated representation of the concept 1 (e.g., Connell & Lynott, 2014b). We mentally represent things that are present in the environment during online processing of real-world perception and action, and can represent them again in their absence during offline remembering, planning, and daydreaming (Wilson, 2002). As such, it seems reasonable that attaching a linguistic label to a particular aspect of experience could make it easier to perform some conceptual tasks, such as acquiring concepts like object kinds (Xu, 2002) and numbers (Carey, 2004), shaping the boundaries between colour categories (Winawer et al., 2007), or influencing how easily a visual feature or object is detected (Lupyan & Ward, 2013). Attaching a label to a bundle of experience may allow us to attend to it more easily in online processing, re-activate it more easily in offline processing, and hence help it cohere into a concept by assisting with abstraction (i.e., moving from a specific instance of sensorimotor experience to a generalised, aggregate form). However, the possibilities regarding language's role in cognition are more far-reaching than assisting concept learning or online perception. Rather than being peripheral to the "real" concept at hand and playing a supporting role in cognition, language could instead be an integral part of the...

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“…Again, these models agree on a general division of labor in the acquisition of these two types of concepts, with concrete concepts being largely learned through sensorimotor experience, and abstract concepts being largely learned through linguistic experience (Andrews et al, 2009;Crutch & Warrington, 2005;Dove, 2009Dove, , 2011Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2010;Steyvers, 2010). The behavioral data supporting this proposal, however, are still recent and limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

The contributions of language and experience to the representation of abstract and concrete words: Different weights but similar organizations

Marques

Nunes

2012

Mem Cogn

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In the present studies, we evaluated the contributions of language and sensorimotor information to the representation of abstract and concrete words and the possibility that the organizations of the two types of concepts follow different organizational principles: association, for abstract concepts, and semantic similarity, for concrete concepts. In Study 1, we examined the two strongest associates of concrete and abstract words from published free association norms. Study 2 then extended this analysis to individual data collected with a free association task. Language associations were more important for abstract than for concrete words, but for sensorimotor information no differences were observed between the two types of concepts. Also, no clear evidence was found for different qualitative organizational principles for abstract and concrete concepts. Multiple representational systems thus seem to be engaged in the conceptual processing of abstract and concrete concepts, while it remains to be investigated whether their representations follow different organizational principles.Keywords Abstract . Concrete . Language . Sensorimotor information . Free associationIn recent years, a diverse set of models regarding conceptual knowledge have proposed that multiple representational systems are engaged in conceptual processing (Andrews, Vigliocco, & Vinson, 2009;Barsalou, Santos, Simmons, & Wilson, 2008;Dove, 2009Dove, , 2011Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2008Simmons, Hamann, Harenski, Hu, & Barsalou, 2008;Steyvers, 2010). In particular, they have all considered that both more sensorimotor-based information and languagebased information play a role in conceptual representation, thus recapturing the ideas first proposed by Paivio (1971Paivio ( , 1986 in the context of the dual-code theory.This general perspective of the involvement of language and sensorimotor information in conceptual representation is particularly discussed regarding the processing and representation of abstract and concrete concepts. Again, these models agree on a general division of labor in the acquisition of these two types of concepts, with concrete concepts being largely learned through sensorimotor experience, and abstract concepts being largely learned through linguistic experience (Andrews et al., 2009;Crutch & Warrington, 2005;Dove, 2009Dove, , 2011Louwerse & Jeuniaux, 2010;Steyvers, 2010). The behavioral data supporting this proposal, however, are still recent and limited. Nevertheless, evidence from both neuropsychological (e.g., Breedin, Saffran, & Coslett, 1994;Crutch & Warrington, 2005;Warrington, 1981) and neuroimaging (e.g., Binder, 2007;Sabsevitz, Medler, Seidenberg, & Binder, 2005) studies converge to show that these two types of concepts differentially activate the brain areas involved in sensorimotor and language representation.Where the models clearly diverge is on whether this division should also entail different organizational principles in terms of conceptual representation. Most models have assumed that the difference betwee...

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The linguistic and embodied nature of conceptual processing

Cited by 165 publications

References 22 publications

Grasping the invisible: Semantic processing of abstract words

Grasping the invisible: Semantic processing of abstract words

What have labels ever done for us? The linguistic shortcut in conceptual processing

The contributions of language and experience to the representation of abstract and concrete words: Different weights but similar organizations

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