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

The role of motor inhibition in implicit negation processing: two Go/No-Go behavioral studies

Several studies demonstrated that explicit forms of negation processing (e.g., "I don't know") recruits motor inhibitory mechanisms. However, whether this is also true for implicit negation, in which the negative meaning is implicated but not explicitly lexicalized in the sentence (e.g., "I ignore"), has never been studied before. Two Go/No-Go studies, which differed only for the time-windows to respond to the Go stimulus, were carried out. In each, participants (N = 86 in experiment 1; N = 87 in experiment 2) respond to coloured circle while reading task-irrelevant affirmative, explicit negative and implicit negative sentences. We aimed to investigate whether: (i) the processing of implicit negations recruits inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) these inhibitory resources are differently modulated by implicit and explicit negations. Results show that implicit negative sentences recruit the inhibitory resources more strongly when compared to explicit ones, probably due to their inferential nature, likely requiring deeper processing of the negative meaning. Implicit and inferential meaning (i.e., pragmatic information) are grounded too in the same mechanisms that integrate action with perception. Such findings provide further evidence to the embodied account of language, showing that even abstract aspects, like implicit negation, are grounded in the sensory-motor system, by means of functional link between language and motor activity.

Concepts require flexible grounding

Research on semantic memory has a problem. On the one hand, a robust body of evidence implicates sensorimotor regions in conceptual processing. On the other hand, a different body of evidence implicates a modality independent semantic system. The standard solution to this tension is to posit a hub-and-spoke system with modality independent hubs and modality specific spokes. In this paper, I argue in support of an alternative view of grounding which remains committed to neural reenactment but emphasizes the multimodal and multilevel nature of the semantic system. This view is built upon the recognition that abstraction is a design feature of concepts. Semantic memory employs hierarchically structured representations to capture different degrees of abstraction. Grounding does not work the way that many embodied approaches have assumed.

Bounded rationality, enactive problem solving, and the neuroscience of social interaction

This article aims to show that there is an alternative way to explain human action with respect to the bottlenecks of the psychology of decision making. The empirical study of human behaviour from mid-20th century to date has mainly developed by looking at a normative model of decision making. In particular Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) decision making, which stems from the subjective expected utility theory of Savage (1954) that itself extended the analysis by Von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944). On this view, the cognitive psychology of decision making precisely reflects the conceptual structure of formal decision theory. This article shows that there is an alternative way to understand decision making by recovering Newell and Simon's account of problem solving, developed in the framework of bounded rationality, and inserting it into the more recent research program of embodied cognition. Herbert Simon emphasized the importance of problem solving and differentiated it from decision making, which he considered a phase downstream of the former. Moreover according to Simon the centre of gravity of the rationality of the action lies in the ability to adapt. And the centre of gravity of adaptation is not so much in the internal environment of the actor as in the pragmatic external environment. The behaviour adapts to external purposes and reveals those characteristics of the system that limit its adaptation. According to Simon (1981), in fact, environmental feedback is the most effective factor in modelling human actions in solving a problem. In addition, his notion of problem space signifies the possible situations to be searched in order to find that situation which corresponds to the solution. Using the language of embodied cognition, the notion of problem space is about the possible solutions that are enacted in relation to environmental affordances. The correspondence between action and the solution of a problem conceptually bypasses the analytic phase of the decision and limits the role of symbolic representation. In solving any problem, the search for the solution corresponds to acting in ways that involve recursive feedback processes leading up to the final action. From this point of view, the new term enactive problem solving summarizes this fusion between bounded and embodied cognition. That problem solving involves bounded cognition means that it is through the problem solver's enactive interaction with environmental affordances, and especially social affordances that it is possible to construct the processes required for arriving at a solution. Lastly the concept of enactive problem solving is also able to explain the mechanisms underlying the adaptive heuristics of rational ecology. Its adaptive function is effective both in practical and motor tasks as well as in abstract and symbolic ones.

Is motor inhibition involved in the processing of sentential negation? An assessment via the Stop-Signal Task

In the last decades, the embodied approach to cognition and language gained momentum in the scientific debate, leading to evidence in different aspects of language processing. However, while the bodily grounding of concrete concepts seems to be relatively not controversial, abstract aspects, like the negation logical operator, are still today one of the main challenges for this research paradigm. In this framework, the present study has a twofold aim: (1) to assess whether mechanisms for motor inhibition underpin the processing of sentential negation, thus, providing evidence for a bodily grounding of this logic operator, (2) to determine whether the Stop-Signal Task, which has been used to investigate motor inhibition, could represent a good tool to explore this issue. Twenty-three participants were recruited in this experiment. Ten hand-action-related sentences, both in affirmative and negative polarity, were presented on a screen. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to the direction of the Go Stimulus (an arrow) and to withhold their response when they heard a sound following the arrow. This paradigm allows estimating the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), a covert reaction time underlying the inhibitory process. Our results show that the SSRT measured after reading negative sentences are longer than after reading affirmative ones, highlighting the recruitment of inhibitory mechanisms while processing negative sentences. Furthermore, our methodological considerations suggest that the Stop-Signal Task is a good paradigm to assess motor inhibition's role in the processing of sentence negation.

Tracing embodied word production in persons with Parkinson's disease in distinct motor conditions

Embodied cognition theories posit direct interactions between sensorimotor and mental processing. Various clinical observations have been interpreted in this controversial framework, amongst others, low verb generation in word production tasks performed by persons with Parkinson's disease (PD). If this were the consequence of reduced motor simulation of prevalent action semantics in this word class, reduced PD pathophysiology should result in increased verb production and a general shift of lexical contents towards particular movement-related meanings. 17 persons with PD and bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subhtalamic nucleus (STN) and 17 healthy control persons engaged in a semantically unconstrained, phonemic verbal fluency task, the former in both DBS-off and DBS-on states. The analysis referred to the number of words produced, verb use, and the occurrence of different dimensions of movement-related semantics in the lexical output. Persons with PD produced fewer words than controls. In the DBS-off, but not in the DBS-on condition, the proportion of verbs within this reduced output was lower than in controls. Lowered verb production went in parallel with a semantic shift: in persons with PD in the DBS-off, but not the DBS-on condition, the relatedness of produced words to own body-movement was lower than in controls. In persons with PD, DBS induced-changes of the motor condition appear to go along with formal and semantic shifts in word production. The results are compatible with the idea of some impact of motor system states on lexical processing.

On the Embodiment of Negation in Italian Sign Language: An Approach Based on Multiple Representation Theories

Negation can be considered a shared social action that develops since early infancy with very basic acts of refusals or rejection. Inspired by an approach to the embodiment of concepts known as Multiple Representation Theories (MRT, henceforth), the present paper explores negation as an embodied action that relies on both sensorimotor and linguistic/social information. Despite the different variants, MRT accounts share the basic ideas that both linguistic/social and sensorimotor information concur to the processes of concepts formation and representation and that the balance between these components depends on the kind of concept, the context, or the performed task. In the present research we will apply the MRT framework for exploring negation in Italian sign language (LIS). The nature of negation in LIS has been explored in continuity with the co-speech gesture where negative elements are encoded through differentiated prosodic and gestural strategies across languages. Data have been collected in naturalistic settings that may allow a much wider understanding of negation both in speech and in spoken language with a semi-structured interview. Five LIS participants with age range 30–80 were recruited and interviewed with the aim of understanding the continuity between gesture and sign in negation. Results highlight that negation utterances mirror the functions of rejection, non-existence and denial that have been described in language acquisition both in deaf and hearing children. These different steps of acquisition of negation show a different balance between sensorimotor, linguistic and social information in the construction of negative meaning that the MRT is able to enlighten.

Affective Saturation Index: A Lexical Measure of Affect

Affect plays a major role in the individual's daily life, driving the sensemaking of experience, psychopathological conditions, social representations of phenomena, and ways of coping with others. The characteristics of affect have been traditionally investigated through physiological, self-report, and behavioral measures. The present article proposes a text-based measure to detect affect intensity: the Affective Saturation Index (ASI). The ASI rationale and the conceptualization of affect are overviewed, and an initial validation study on the ASI's convergent and concurrent validity is presented. Forty individuals completed a non-clinical semi-structured interview. For each interview transcript, the ASI was esteemed and compared to the individual's physiological index of propensity to affective arousal (measured by heart rate variability (HRV)); transcript semantic complexity (measured through the Semantic Entropy Index (SEI)); and lexical syntactic complexity (measured through the Flesch-Vacca Index (FVI)). ANOVAs and bi-variate correlations estimated the size of the relationships between indexes and sample characteristics (age, gender), then a set of multiple linear regressions tested the ASI's association with HRV, the SEI, and the FVI. Results support the ASI construct and criteria validity. The ASI proved able to detect affective saturation in interview transcripts (SEI and FVI, adjusted R2 = 0.428 and adjusted R2 = 0.241, respectively) and the way the text's affective saturation reflected the intensity of the individual's affective state (HRV, adjusted R2 = 0.428). In conclusion, although the specificity of the sample (psychology students) limits the findings' generalizability, the ASI provides the chance to use written texts to measure affect in accordance with a dynamic approach, independent of the spatio-temporal setting in which they were produced. In doing so, the ASI provides a way to empower the empirical analysis of fields such as psychotherapy and social group dynamics.

The phase space of meaning model of psychopathology: A computer simulation modelling study

INTRODUCTION

The hypothesis of a general psychopathology factor that underpins all common forms of mental disorders has been gaining momentum in contemporary clinical research and is known as the p factor hypothesis. Recently, a semiotic, embodied, and psychoanalytic conceptualisation of the p factor has been proposed called the Harmonium Model, which provides a computational account of such a construct. This research tested the core tenet of the Harmonium model, which is the idea that psychopathology can be conceptualised as due to poorly-modulable cognitive processes, and modelled the concept of Phase Space of Meaning (PSM) at the computational level.

METHOD

Two studies were performed, both based on a simulation design implementing a deep learning model, simulating a cognitive process: a classification task. The level of performance of the task was considered the simulated equivalent to the normality-psychopathology continuum, the dimensionality of the neural network's internal computational dynamics being the simulated equivalent of the PSM's dimensionality.

RESULTS

The neural networks' level of performance was shown to be associated with the characteristics of the internal computational dynamics, assumed to be the simulated equivalent of poorly-modulable cognitive processes.

DISCUSSION

Findings supported the hypothesis. They showed that the neural network's low performance was a matter of the combination of predicted characteristics of the neural networks' internal computational dynamics. Implications, limitations, and further research directions are discussed.

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.

Steps Towards a Unified Theory of Psychopathology: The Phase Space of Meaning Model

The hypothesis of a general psychopathology factor (p factor) has been advanced in recent years. It is an innovation with breakthrough potential, in the perspective of a unified view of psychopathology; however, what remains a controversial topic is how its nature might be conceptualized. The current paper outlines a semiotic, embodied and psychoanalytic conceptualization of psychopathology - the Phase Space of Meaning (PSM) model - aimed at providing ontological grounds to the p factor hypothesis. Framed within a more general model of how the mind works, the PSM model maintains that the p factor can be conceived as the empirical marker of the degree of rigidity of the meaning-maker's way of interpreting experience, namely of the dimensions of meanings used to map the environment's variability. As to the clinical implications, two main aspects are outlined. First, according PSM model, psychopathology is not an invariant condition, and does not have a set dimensionality, but is able to vary it locally, in order to address the requirement of situated action. Second, psychopathology is conceived as one of the mind's modes of working, rather than the manifestation of its disruption. Finally, the puzzling issue of the interplay between stability and variability in the evolutionary trajectories of patients along with their life events is addressed and discussed.

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'.

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.