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Diveica V, Muraki EJ, Binney RJ, Pexman PM. Mapping semantic space: Exploring the higher-order structure of word meaning. Cognition 2024; 248:105794. [PMID: 38653181 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105794] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2023] [Revised: 03/27/2024] [Accepted: 04/15/2024] [Indexed: 04/25/2024]
Abstract
Multiple representation theories posit that concepts are represented via a combination of properties derived from sensorimotor, affective, and linguistic experiences. Recently, it has been proposed that information derived from social experience, or socialness, represents another key aspect of conceptual representation. How these various dimensions interact to form a coherent conceptual space has yet to be fully explored. To address this, we capitalized on openly available word property norms for 6339 words and conducted a large-scale investigation into the relationships between 18 dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis reduced the dimensions to six higher-order factors: sub-lexical, distributional, visuotactile, body action, affective and social interaction. All these factors explained unique variance in performance on lexical and semantic tasks, demonstrating that they make important contributions to the representation of word meaning. An important and novel finding was that the socialness dimension clustered with the auditory modality and with mouth and head actions. We suggest this reflects experiential learning from verbal interpersonal interactions. Moreover, formally modelling the network structure of semantic space revealed pairwise partial correlations between most dimensions and highlighted the centrality of the interoception dimension. Altogether, these findings provide new insights into the architecture of conceptual space, including the importance of inner and social experience, and highlight promising avenues for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Veronica Diveica
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd LL57 2AS, UK; Montreal Neurological Institute, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada.
| | - Emiko J Muraki
- Department of Psychology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
| | - Richard J Binney
- Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychology, Bangor University, Gwynedd LL57 2AS, UK.
| | - Penny M Pexman
- Department of Psychology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada; Department of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada.
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Solana P, Escámez O, Casasanto D, Chica AB, Santiago J. No support for a causal role of primary motor cortex in construing meaning from language: An rTMS study. Neuropsychologia 2024; 196:108832. [PMID: 38395339 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108832] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2023] [Revised: 02/15/2024] [Accepted: 02/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/25/2024]
Abstract
Embodied cognition theories predict a functional involvement of sensorimotor processes in language understanding. In a preregistered experiment, we tested this idea by investigating whether interfering with primary motor cortex (M1) activation can change how people construe meaning from action language. Participants were presented with sentences describing actions (e.g., "turning off the light") and asked to choose between two interpretations of their meaning, one more concrete (e.g., "flipping a switch") and another more abstract (e.g., "going to sleep"). Prior to this task, participants' M1 was disrupted using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The results yielded strong evidence against the idea that M1-rTMS affects meaning construction (BF01 > 30). Additional analyses and control experiments suggest that the absence of effect cannot be accounted for by failure to inhibit M1, lack of construct validity of the task, or lack of power to detect a small effect. In sum, these results do not support a causal role for primary motor cortex in building meaning from action language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pablo Solana
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain.
| | - Omar Escámez
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
| | | | - Ana B Chica
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
| | - Julio Santiago
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
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Persichetti AS, Shao J, Denning JM, Gotts SJ, Martin A. Taxonomic structure in a set of abstract concepts. Front Psychol 2024; 14:1278744. [PMID: 38239478 PMCID: PMC10794597 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1278744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 12/08/2023] [Indexed: 01/22/2024] Open
Abstract
A large portion of human knowledge comprises "abstract" concepts that lack readily perceivable properties (e.g., "love" and "justice"). Since abstract concepts lack such properties, they have historically been treated as an undifferentiated category of knowledge in the psychology and neuropsychology literatures. More recently, the categorical structure of abstract concepts is often explored using paradigms that ask participants to make explicit judgments about a set of concepts along dimensions that are predetermined by the experimenter. Such methods require the experimenter to select dimensions that are relevant to the concepts and further that people make explicit judgments that accurately reflect their mental representations. We bypassed these requirements by collecting two large sets of non-verbal and implicit judgments about which dimensions are relevant to the similarity between pairs of 50 abstract nouns to determine the representational space of the concepts. We then identified categories within the representational space using a clustering procedure that required categories to replicate across two independent data sets. In a separate experiment, we used automatic semantic priming to further validate the categories and to show that they are an improvement over categories that were defined within the same set of abstract concepts using explicit ratings along predetermined dimensions. These results demonstrate that abstract concepts can be characterized beyond their negative relation to concrete concepts and that categories of abstract concepts can be defined without using a priori dimensions for the concepts or explicit judgments from participants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew S. Persichetti
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, ML, United States
| | - Jiayu Shao
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, ML, United States
| | - Joseph M. Denning
- Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | - Stephen J. Gotts
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, ML, United States
| | - Alex Martin
- Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, ML, United States
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van Hoef R, Connell L, Lynott D. The effects of sensorimotor and linguistic information on the basic-level advantage. Cognition 2023; 241:105606. [PMID: 37722237 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105606] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2022] [Revised: 08/05/2023] [Accepted: 08/25/2023] [Indexed: 09/20/2023]
Abstract
The basic-level advantage is one of the best-known effects in human categorisation. Traditional accounts argue that basic-level categories present a maximally informative or entry level into a taxonomic organisation of concepts in semantic memory. However, these explanations are not fully compatible with most recent views on the structure of the conceptual system such as linguistic-simulation accounts, which emphasise the dual role of sensorimotor (i.e., perception-action experience of the world) and linguistic distributional information (i.e., statistical distribution of words in language) in conceptual processing. In four preregistered word→picture categorisation studies, we examined whether novel measures of sensorimotor and linguistic distance contribute to the basic level-advantage in categorical decision-making. Results showed that overlap in sensorimotor experience between category concept and member concept (e.g., animal→dog) predicted RT and accuracy at least as well as a traditional division into discrete subordinate, basic, and superordinate taxonomic levels. Furthermore, linguistic distributional information contributed to capturing effects of graded category structure where typicality ratings did not. Finally, when image label production frequency was taken into account (i.e., how often people actually produced specific labels for images), linguistic distributional information predicted RT and accuracy above and beyond sensorimotor information. These findings add to our understanding of how sensorimotor-linguistic theories of the conceptual system can explain categorisation behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rens van Hoef
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
| | - Louise Connell
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom; Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
| | - Dermot Lynott
- Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
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Borghi AM, Mazzuca C. Grounded Cognition, Linguistic Relativity, and Abstract Concepts. Top Cogn Sci 2023; 15:662-667. [PMID: 37165536 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12663] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2023] [Revised: 04/21/2023] [Accepted: 04/24/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Kemmerer's paper convincingly claims that the grounded cognition model (GCM) entails linguistic relativity. Here, we underline that tackling linguistic relativity and cultural differences is vital for GCM. First, it allows GCM to focus more on flexible rather than stable aspects of cognition. Second, it highlights the centrality of linguistic experience for human cognition. While GCM-inspired research underscored the similarity between linguistic and nonlinguistic concepts, it is now paramount to understand when and how language(s) influence knowledge. To this aim, we argue that linguistic variation might be particularly relevant for more abstract concepts-which are more debatable and open to revisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna M Borghi
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council
| | - Claudia Mazzuca
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome
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Hoemann K. Beyond Linguistic Relativity, Emotion Concepts Illustrate How Meaning is Contextually and Individually Variable. Top Cogn Sci 2023; 15:668-675. [PMID: 37145872 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12659] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2023] [Revised: 04/18/2023] [Accepted: 04/18/2023] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Kemmerer describes grounded accounts of cognition and, using crosslinguistic diversity across conceptual domains, argues that these accounts entail linguistic relativity. In this comment, I extend Kemmerer's position to the domain of emotion. Emotion concepts exemplify characteristics highlighted by grounded accounts of cognition and differ by culture and language. Recent research further demonstrates considerable situation- and person-specific differences. Based on this evidence, I argue that emotion concepts carry unique implications for variation in meaning and experience, entailing a relativity that is contextual and individual in addition to linguistic. I conclude by considering what such pervasive relativity means for interpersonal understanding.
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Borghi AM, Osińska A, Roepstorff A, Raczaszek-Leonardi J. Editorial concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20210351. [PMID: 36571137 PMCID: PMC9791470 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0351] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
This theme issue aims to view the literature on concepts through a novel lens, that of social interaction and its influence on inner experiences. It discusses unsolved problems in literature on concepts, emphasizing the distinction between concrete versus abstract concepts and external versus internal grounding. This introductory article reflects the two research streams that the theme aims to bridge-in this area, the dimension of embodied interaction with others and how this influences the interaction with ourselves is still underexplored. In the first part, we discuss recent trends in social cognition, showing how interacting with others influences our concepts. In the second part, we address how social interactions become part of our inner world in a Vygotskian fashion. First, we illustrate how interoception, emotion and metacognition are connected with concepts and knowledge. Second, we deal with how language, in both its outer and inner form, can empower cognition and concepts. We also briefly describe how novel experimental and computational methods contribute to investigating the online use of concepts. Overall, this introductory article outlines the potentialities of an integrated and interactive approach that can give new, fresh life to a topic, that of concepts, which lies at the root of human cognition. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna M. Borghi
- Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Lazio, Italy,Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Lazio, Italy
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