Abstract Words as Social Tools: Which Necessary Evidence?

A novel image database for social concepts reveals preference biases in autistic spectrum in adults and children

Human beings display the extraordinary ability of grasping and communicating abstract concepts. Yet, no standardized instruments exist to assess this ability. Developing these tools is paramount for understanding abstract representations such as social concepts, with ramifications in educational and clinical settings. Here, we developed an image database depicting abstract social concepts varying in social desirability. We first validated the image database in a sample of neurotypical participants. Then, we applied the database to test different hypotheses regarding how social concepts are represented across samples of adults and children with autism spectrum condition (ASC). Relative to the neurotypicals, we did not observe differences related to ASC in identification performance of the social desirability of the concepts, nor differences in metacognitive ability. However, we observed a preference bias away from prosocial concepts that was linked to individual autistic traits in the neurotypicals, and higher in ASC relative to the neurotypicals both in adults and children. These results indicate that abstract representations such as social concepts are dependent on individual neurodevelopmental traits. The image database thus provides a standardized assessment tool for investigating the representation of abstract social concepts in the fields of psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, and cognitive neuroscience, across different cultures and languages.

Gamification as technology enabler in SEN and DHH education

Yearly in Mauritius, only a few Special Educational Needs (SEN) and especially Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) students manage to get a passing mark in French language at elementary level. As at date, literature suggests that there is hardly any French language learning tools connected with pedagogical knowledge and technological tools suitable for those children. The rationale behind this paper is to show how gamification of French learning resources can positively affect SEN and especially DHH students' understanding and level of achievement in the language. Research questions were posed about the difficulties faced when students of that specific group learn to read and write in French, about how the gamification of textual resources can be used to improve the students' learning, and the impact the games have on the students. The aim of this research is to embed gamification in the teaching and learning process of French language. Advocating for both qualitative and quantitative methods, the project based itself on the pragmatic paradigm while the theoretical framework is based on action research. Using my methodological inventiveness, data was gathered using techniques such as surveys, interviews, observations and focus group discussions through the lenses of narrative inquiry. On average, most students already did quite well when subjected to their teachers' teaching methods only and showed a slight improvement for some students when games were added as learning aid.

Bodily, emotional, and public sphere at the time of COVID-19. An investigation on concrete and abstract concepts

The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemics has dramatically affected people’s lives. Among newly established practices, it has likely enriched our conceptual representations with new components. We tested this by asking Italian participants during the first lockdown to rate a set of diverse words on several crucial dimensions. We found concepts are organized along a main axis opposing internal and external grounding, with fine-grained distinctions within the two categories underlining the role of emotions. We also show through a comparison with existing data that Covid-19 impacted the organization of conceptual representations. For instance, subclasses of abstract concepts that are usually distinct converge into a unitary group, characterized by emotions and internal grounding. Additionally, we found institutional and Covid-19 related concepts, for which participants felt more the need for others to understand the meaning, clustered together. Our results show that the spread of Covid-19 has simultaneously changed our lives and shaped our conceptual representations.

From Affordances to Abstract Words: The Flexibility of Sensorimotor Grounding

The sensorimotor system plays a critical role in several cognitive processes. Here, we review recent studies documenting this interplay at different levels. First, we concentrate on studies that have shown how the sensorimotor system is flexibly involved in interactions with objects. We report evidence demonstrating how social context and situations influence affordance activation, and then focus on tactile and kinesthetic components in body-object interactions. Then, we turn to word use, and review studies that have shown that not only concrete words, but also abstract words are grounded in the sensorimotor system. We report evidence that abstract concepts activate the mouth effector more than concrete concepts, and discuss this effect in light of studies on adults, children, and infants. Finally, we pinpoint possible sensorimotor mechanisms at play in the acquisition and use of abstract concepts. Overall, we show that the involvement of the sensorimotor system is flexibly modulated by context, and that its role can be integrated and flanked by that of other systems such as the linguistic system. We suggest that to unravel the role of the sensorimotor system in cognition, future research should fully explore the complexity of this intricate, and sometimes slippery, relation.