The challenge of abstract concepts

Handbook of Embodied Psychology, 2021

Some have recently suggested that abstract concepts do not constitute a substantial challenge to embodied cognition because they do not form a unified category. In this chapter, I argue that abstract concepts are indeed heterogeneous but as such pose several distinct theoretical challenges. After surveying the current evidence for, and responses to, these challenges, I conclude that a comprehensive embodied account that addresses the diversity of abstract concepts remains possible. Several desiderata for a future theory emerge from this critical review. A successful theory will need to embrace not only distributed multimodal representations but also recognize the importance of the emotions and the language system; to posit a hierarchical architecture that includes cross-modal convergence zones or hubs; and to provide a robust explanation for the semantic flexibility of concepts in general and abstract concepts in particular.

A great deal of research has focused on the question of whether or not concepts are embodied as a rule. Supporters of embodiment have pointed to studies that implicate affective and sensorimotor systems in cognitive tasks, while critics of embodiment have offered nonembodied explanations of these results and pointed to studies that implicate amodal systems. Abstract concepts have tended to be viewed as an important test case in this polemical debate. This essay argues that we need to move beyond a pretheoretical notion of abstraction. Against the background of current research and theory, abstract concepts do not pose a single, unified problem for embodied cognition but, instead, three distinct problems: the problem of generalization, the problem of flexibility, and the problem of disembodiment. Identifying these problems provides a conceptual framework for critically evaluating, and perhaps improving upon, recent theoretical proposals.

Frontiers in Psychology

RIFL - Rivista Italiana Filosofia del Linguaggio, 2013

Grounded and embodied theories of cognition face the problem of a consistent account of abstract concepts: if cognition is grounded in the brain modal systems and consists in modal simulations, where are abstract concepts from? After discussing some fully modal embodied theories of abstract concepts and two pluralistic approaches involving modal and amodal representational systems, we will present a way to account for abstractness without involving amodal formats: the Words as Tools theory. Combining embodied and extended approaches, the WAT theory holds that embodied experience is not enclosed inside the boundaries of our body; words are modal entities (they are perceivable and activate multimodal situations related to their meaning) and they also are social instruments to perform actions of selection and grouping; abstract words are grouping tools whose related sensorimotor experiences are so variable and dissimilar among them that linguistic information provides us with a necessary support to bind them together in the same category. Social and linguistic (embodied) experience is crucial for building the meaning of words, particularly of abstract ones.

Frontiers in Cognition, 2011

This essay proposes and defends a pluralistic theory of conceptual embodiment. Our concepts are represented in at least two ways: (i) through sensorimotor simulations of our interactions with objects and events and (ii) through sensorimotor simulations of natural language processing. Linguistic representations are “dis-embodied” in the sense that they are dynamic and multimodal but, in contrast to other forms of embodied cognition, do not inherit semantic content from this embodiment. The capacity to store information in the associations and inferential relationships among linguistic representations extends our cognitive reach and provides an explanation of our ability to abstract and generalize. This theory is supported by a number of empirical considerations, including the large body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting a multiple semantic code explanation of imageability effects.

Philosophical Psychology, 2019

According to the embodied cognition hypothesis, the mental symbols used for higher cognitive reasoning, such as the making of deductive and inductive inferences, both originate and reside in our sensory-motor-introspective and emotional systems. The main objection to this view is that it cannot explain concepts that are, by definition, detached from perception and action, i.e., abstract concepts such as TRUTH or DEMOCRACY. This objection is usually merely taken for granted and has yet to be spelled out in detail. In this paper, I distinguish three different versions of this objection (one semantic and two epistemic versions). Once these distinctions are in place, we can begin to see the solutions offered in the literature in a new, more positive, light.

2015

By the mainstream view in psychology and neuroscience, concepts are informational units, rather stable, and are represented in propositional format. In the view I will outline, instead, concepts correspond to patterns of activation of the perception, action and emotional systems which are typically activated when we interact with the entities they refer to. Starting from this embodied and grounded approach to concepts, I will focus on different research lines and present some experimental evidence concerning concepts of objects, concepts of actions, and abstract concepts. I will argue that, in order to account for abstract concepts, embodied and grounded theories should be extended.

Journal of Physiology-Paris

Many studies have demonstrated that the sensory and motor systems are activated during conceptual processing. Such results have been interpreted as indicating that concepts, and important aspects of cognition more broadly, are embodied. That conclusion does not follow from the empirical evidence. The reason why is that the empirical evidence can equally be accommodated by a 'disembodied' view of conceptual representation that makes explicit assumptions about spreading activation between the conceptual and sensory and motor systems. At the same time, the strong form of the embodied cognition hypothesis is at variance with currently available neuropsychological evidence. We suggest a middle ground between the embodied and disembodied cognition hypotheses -grounding by interaction. This hypothesis combines the view that concepts are, at some level, 'abstract' and 'symbolic', with the idea that sensory and motor information may 'instantiate' online conceptual processing.

Journal of Physiology-paris, 2008

Many studies have demonstrated that the sensory and motor systems are activated during conceptual processing. Such results have been interpreted as indicating that concepts, and important aspects of cognition more broadly, are embodied. That conclusion does not follow from the empirical evidence. The reason why is that the empirical evidence can equally be accommodated by a 'disembodied' view of conceptual representation that makes explicit assumptions about spreading activation between the conceptual and sensory and motor systems. At the same time, the strong form of the embodied cognition hypothesis is at variance with currently available neuropsychological evidence. We suggest a middle ground between the embodied and disembodied cognition hypotheses -grounding by interaction. This hypothesis combines the view that concepts are, at some level, 'abstract' and 'symbolic', with the idea that sensory and motor information may 'instantiate' online conceptual processing.

In the last decade many researchers have obtained evidence for the idea that cognition shares processing mechanisms with perception and action. Most of the evidence supporting the grounded cognition framework focused on representations of concrete concepts, which leaves open the question how abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor processing. One promising idea is that people simulate concrete situations and introspective experiences to represent abstract concepts [Barsalou, L. W., & Wiemer-Hastings, K. (2005). Situating abstract concepts. In D. Pecher, & R. A. Zwaan (Eds.), Grounding cognition: The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thinking (pp. 129–163). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.], although this has not yet been investigated a lot. A second idea, which more researchers have investigated, is that people use metaphorical mappings from concrete to abstract concepts [Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.]. According to this conceptual metaphor theory, image schemas structure and provide sensory-motor grounding for abstract concepts. Although there is evidence that people automatically activate image schemas when they process abstract concepts, we argue that situations are also needed to fully represent meaning.